Can I Have a Lumpectomy If I Had a Breast Implant Before My Cancer Diagnosis?

— -- Question: Can I have a lumpectomy if I had a breast implant before my cancer diagnosis?

Answer: If a patient has had a breast implant -- in other words, a breast augmentation -- and she then develops cancer, she can be treated with breast preservation, in the same manner as a women who is not augmented. The cancerous lesion has to be excised, with clear margins; the axillary nodes have to be sampled or sentinel node biopsy done, and then post-operatively that patient would receive radiation therapy and she can preserve her augmentation. What she needs to know though, is that radiation therapy sometimes scars the tissue around the augmentation, and she may get not as good a cosmetic result as if she were not augmented.

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