The ideal excision margin in breast
conserving surgery is still a matter of debate. The aim is to
see if there is any correlation between increasing
excision margin distance and local recurrence rate.
Patients who had breast
conserving surgery at Mater Dei Hospital in 2009 had
their notes reviewed retrospectively. Patient
demograpichs, including the excision margins were
recorded. Local recurrences within a 3 year follow up
period were noted. Chi square was used to compare
categorical data and a p value of less than 0.05 was
considered statistically significant.
91 patients were recruited into the study. 74
patients (81.5%) had negative margins (>1mm), 10
patients (11%) had close margins (<1mm) while 7
patients (7.5%) had positive margins. 5 patients (5.5%)
had local recurrence. The highest recurrence rate (14%)
was in patients with positive margins, and no statistical
signficant difference in recurrence rates was noted with
wider excision margins.
As long as the margins are negative,
increasing excision margins will not result in a better
local recurrence rate.peer-reviewe
