ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Breast-conserving lumpectomy followed by radiation is becoming a popular and equally efficacious alternative to mastectomy for the treatment of breast cancer. However, some 20-30% of the time, cancerous cells remain in the cavity around the excised tissue, a situation that calls for additional surgery. CairnSurgical aims to increase surgical precision with a custom guide that intraoperatively defines the contours of the tumor.
Since the mid 80’s, breast conserving surgery (lumpectomy) followed by radiation has become an efficacious option for the treatment of many breast cancers, and it’s clearly a less traumatic option for women than having their entire breast removed. A lumpectomy is entirely successful when a surgeon achieves clean margins around the excised tissue, clean in this context meaning that the tissue on the surface of the specimen contains no cancer cells. This is somewhat challenging to accomplish, however, since surgeons are rarely guided by the kind of intraoperative imaging (MRI) that would allow them to see the tumor, although pre-operative MRI gives them a roadmap.
