[The importance of surgical margins in conservative surgery for breast cancer].

In the last few decades, conservative surgery has become an option in the surgical treatment of breast cancer. The success of conservative surgery depends not only on appropriate patient selection but also on the combination of adequate surgical margins and an acceptable cosmetic result. Obtaining negative surgical margins in conservative breast surgery influences the incidence of local disease recurrence and probably overall survival. Therefore, it is essential to optimize intraoperative examination of margins as well as to explore new techniques that would achieve the greatest possible percentage of negative margins.