Breast surgical management Breast management begins with clinical examination and includes breast palpation, nipple discharge test as well as palpation of the axillae and the cervical area for possible enlarged lymph nodes.

Clinical evaluation is completed by adding the information from various imaging examinations, ideally performed by trained radiologists, specialised in the field of breast diseases with the ability to correlate imaging with clinical information. The common breast imaging modalities consist of digital mammography (MM), ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance mammography (MRM). The correlation of the total amount of information by the specialised breast surgeon, leads to diagnosis with or without performing a biopsy (FNA, Core Biopsy or Punch skin Biopsy) depending on the nature of the lesion and the degree of clinical suspicion.

Upon diagnosis of a lesion that needs further surgical treatment, operation is performed in theatre under general anaesthesia, using a broad spectrum of oncoplastic techniques that aim to achieve maximum therapeutic effectiveness with the best cosmetic outcome possible. The surgical treatment of the breast, depending on the nature of the lesion (benign or malignant) may dictate further intervention to the regional lymph nodes and that starts with the biopsy of the sentinel lymph node (SLNB). Pathological evaluation of the removed parts gives the final histological report that will define further treatments if needed.