Breast cancer surgery began long before radiation therapy, chemotherapy or hormonal therapy existed. At that time surgery was the only available treatment. The standard of care was radical mastectomy – removal of the entire breast tissue with the underlying muscle and removal of all the lymph nodes from the arm pit. The surgery is terribly disfiguring and debilitating, but was the only thing standing between patients and a fatal illness. Radical mastectomy was first performed in the 1880s and re...