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Arch Surg. 2001;136:357-358.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

WHEN I was a surgical resident in the early 1950s, I knew exactly what to do for a patient with primary operable breast cancer. She needed a classical Halsted radical mastectomy with meticulous dissection of the entire axillary contents.

Therefore, I was surprised to read an article¹ by 2 British statisticians in the journal Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics. Drs Park and Lees discussed the results of breast cancer operations at great length. Indicative of the many differences in medicine between 1951 and 2000, their paper was 33 pages long. They finished this lengthy review with the conclusion that surgical intervention did little to alter the natural history of the disease.

The surgical community in the United States paid little attention to Park and Lees, and the enthusiasm for radical mastectomy continued. In the late 1950s there was even some consideration given to the addition of internal mammary node dissection . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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