The changing role of surgery in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Many changes have occurred in the surgical treatment of the cancer patient. For many tumors, surgery has been modified or eliminated. These changes are due to the realization that, for some cancers, more extensive surgical procedures are not more beneficial, to improvements in radiation therapy and chemotherapy, to the availability of better noninvasive or less invasive diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, and to improved surgical equipment (such as videoscopic surgery).