Radical mastectomy

Radical mastectomy is a surgical procedure in which the breast, underlying chest muscle (including pectoralis major and pectoralis minor), and lymph nodes of the axilla are removed as a treatment for breast cancer.

It was developed and first performed by William Stewart Halsted in 1882. From about 1895 to the mid-1970s about 90% of the women being treated for breast cancer in the U.S. underwent the Halsted radical mastectomy. This is a very morbid disfiguring surgery and is no longer performed except in extreme cases. Prior to 1975, if a woman had a lump in her breast, and the lump proved to be malignant, a radical mastectomy was performed immediately, in the belief that it was necessary to prevent the further spread of the cancer.^{[citation needed]} If the lymph nodes tested benign, the surgery was considered successful.^{[citation needed]} The operation was very stressful for women, because, in many cases, they would go under anesthesia not knowing whether a suspicious lump was malignant or not and wake up to find that a radical mastectomy had been performed.^{[citation needed]}

Today, there are three main categories of mastectomy:

1. total (simple) mastectomy,
2. modified radical mastectomy,
3. partial mastectomy.