[Surgical treatment of breast cancer, national and international standards of care].

Breast cancer shall continue to be a public health problem because of its constantly ascending incidence and its high mortality. In the last decades, several positive changes happened in the treatment of this disease, as breast cancer screening, and introducing more effective oncological and surgical therapeutical methods. Qualitative and methodological development of breast surgery, the centralisation and the daily practice of quality assurance principles together will play an important role in reduction of breast cancer mortality in the future.