Skin involvement in invasive breast carcinoma: safety of skin-sparing mastectomy.

Background: There is concern about the oncological safety of preserving most of the breast skin in skin-sparing mastectomy (SSM). Most supportive evidence for SSM evaluates the local recurrence rate on clinical follow-up.

Methods: The skin and 10 mm of the subcutaneous tissue of 30 total mastectomy specimens were studied with a step-serial sectioning technique.