Surgical management modifications following systematic additional shaving of cavity margins in breast-conservation treatment.

Background: Positive wide local excision margins are the most important risk factor of local breast-carcinoma recurrence. Shaving additional margins could lower the need for re-excisions when wide local excision margins are positive and cavity margins are negative.

Methods: This retrospective study, from January 2007 to December 2008, included 99 women with breast carcinomas who underwent wide local excision with 4 additional, systematically shaved, surgical cavity margins. All therapeutic decisions concerning post-wide local excision treatment were made by consensus during multidisciplinary meetings.

Results: This systematic cavity-shaving strategy avoided 25 re-excisions (25.3%), and 6 patients required new surgery because of carcinoma found in the additional cavity-shaving margins, despite negative wide local excision margins. No preoperative factor predictive of positive cavity margins was identified.

Conclusions: Systematic shaving of additional cavity margins changed the surgical management after breast-conservation treatment.