Does Center Volume Correlate with Survival from Breast Cancer?

With its high incidence and long history of patient advocacy, breast cancer has generated the most concern about the quality of its care and the volume-outcome relationship. In breast cancer surgery, the risk of perioperative morbidity or mortality is low, but surgery is only one single piece in the mosaic of multidisciplinary care that eventually determines survival. Only a limited number of articles is available investigating the relationship between case volume of physicians and hospitals and specialization of surgeons and survival. In summary, there is evidence to support the hypothesis that specialization, research interest, and caseload of physicians and hospitals is positively correlated with providing state-of-the-art care and with survival. However, it is less clear what impact might be attributed to the surgical routine gained with increasing number of procedures compared to the deeper insight into the biology of breast cancer that comes with specialization in oncology and the weight of the multidisciplinary setting that is more easily established and maintained with a higher caseload.