Version May 2024
| Mastectomy | Lumpectomy | |
| How will I look? | If you decide not to have your breast reconstructed, you will have a scar where your breast used to be. If you do have your breast reconstructed, you will have a new breast made of an implant or out of skin, muscle, and fat taken from other parts of your body. Reconstructed breasts do not have as much sensation as breasts that have had a lumpectomy. | Your breast will have a scar and might have a dent or dimple where the tissue was removed. The treated breast might be a little smaller than the other breast. Still, it will feel more like a real breast than a reconstructed breast and have more sensation. |
| What will my recovery from surgery be like? | You will stay in the hospital for 1 to 2 days (or a little longer if you have reconstruction done, too). You will go home with drains that must be emptied twice a day and that stay in for about 2 weeks. Your recovery will take 4 to 6 weeks. During that time, you will need to rest and avoid sports, swimming, and heavy lifting. You might need physical therapy. | You will go home from the hospital the same day as your surgery, and your recovery will take 1 to 2 weeks. During that time, you will need to rest and avoid sports, swimming, and heavy lifting. You might need physical therapy. |
| What are the risks or side effects of this surgery? | Mastectomy is usually safe, but it can sometimes lead to bleeding, infection, or fluid build-up. Plus, the surgery can sometimes damage the skin on the chest. (This is more common in people who smoke.) | Lumpectomy is usually safe, but it can sometimes lead to bleeding, infection, or fluid build-up where the cancer was removed. |
| Will I need more than 1 surgery? | Possibly, if you decide to have your breast reconstructed later. | Possibly, if the cancer comes up to the margins and the surgeon has to take more tissue. |
| Will I need radiation therapy? | Probably not. But some people who have mastectomy do need radiation. | Yes. After lumpectomy, most people must have radiation therapy 5 days a week for 3 to 6 weeks. |
| What are the chances that cancer will come back in the same area? | Cancer can still recur after mastectomy because all the breast tissue cannot be totally removed. About 5 out of 100 people who have a mastectomy will have cancer come back on the chest wall after mastectomy. | Fewer than 10 out of 100 people who have a lumpectomy will have cancer recur. |
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