Mastectomy is the most common treatment for breast cancer today. As recently as 15 years ago, many doctors considered radical mastectomy the only procedure for treating breast cancer. It removed the entire breast, the chest muscles under the breast, and all underarm lymph nodes, leaving a hollow chest area. Many women feared the treatment as much as the disease.

Currently, the treatment of choice is called the modified radical mastectomy. In this procedure, only the breast tissue and underarm...