Breast

D ue to the high prevalence, the high mortality, and the operative therapy which is currently required, breast cancer represents a great problem from the medical, psychological, and health policy point of view. In the past 20 years, breast cancer has been the most frequently occurring cancer of women in the western hemisphere. It is the most frequent cause of death of women below 50 years in age and, as a whole, the most frequent cause of cancer mortality of women. Despite the constant improvement of diagnostic procedures, the introduction of novel mammography techniques and ultrasonic methods, in principle, nothing has changed. This dilemma is to be regretted, as the relatively slow growth rates of breast cancer, with tumor doubling times of ∼100 to 300 days, give sufficient time to detect the tumor in a curable stage, i.e., before the formation of external metastases. It is known that a tumor <1 cm in size has an excellent prognosis irrespective of its internal histological structure. It is estimated that a breast cancer needs a period of ∼7 to 10 years for reaching a size of ∼1 cm on an average.