[Is curative treatment of breast cancer necessarily connected with radical mastectomy after Rotter-Halsted? (author's transl)].

Lokal recidivation rate in carcinoma of the female breast represents besides the 5- to 10-years survival rate an important parameter for primary surgical treatment. At the Chirurgische Universitätsklinik Tübingen radical mastectomy in the Rotter-Halsted technique as well as extended radical mastectomy were abandoned because they did not improve the survival rate. Surgery of the female breast is now performed according to different stages of the carcinoma. A comparative study in non-selected patients of our hospital showed that local relapse of the breast cancer did not depend on surgical technique, if the tumour was removed with a sufficient safety distance and postoperative megavolt radiation was performed.