They’re Gonna Do What?

A lumpectomy by any other name is still a lumpectomy, which is the removal of a
lump or mass of tissue. For certain cancers, the lumpectomy combined with radiation
therapy has proven equally as effective as a mastectomy, which is the removal of the
entire breast. Your surgeon will use one of the following terms: surgical biopsy, (in-
cluding perhaps a reference to excisional or incisional biopsy), partial mastectomy
(maybe using terms like segmental mastectomy or quadrantectomy), or lumpectomy.
Surgical Biopsy
In Chapter 1, “It Ain’t Gold in Them Hills,” we talked about a core needle biopsy as a
diagnostic procedure. A surgical biopsy serves the same purpose: to remove tissue in
order for a pathologist to find out what’s there. If your surgeon calls it an excisional
biopsy, he plans to remove a suspicious mass as well as a rim of tissue in order for the
pathologist to identify any malignancy.
On the other hand, if it’s called an incisional biopsy, you have a large tumor, and your
surgeon plans to remove a wedge of the lump in order for the pathologist to deter-
mine what’s there.
Since the surgery at this point is really diagnostic, typically neither kind of biopsy in-
volves the removal of lymph nodes. Depending on what the surgeon and pathologist
find, however, you may be in for more surgery.