Why don't you tell me the biopsy results and then let me decide whether or not I want any further surgery or a removal of my breast?

As a general policy surgeons try to avoid cutting into a suspected cancer for biopsy without having the opportunity immediately to deal with the results of the biopsy. Each time a breast operation for a tumor is to be done, the surgeon discusses with the patient in advance the possibility that, if the biopsy indicates a cancer, the breast may have to be removed. Actually the patient usually gives written consent, in advance, for a breast amputation. Under very special circumstances, where the surgeon can be almost 100 percent certain that the mass is a benign tumor, he will remove it without discussing the possibility of the more radical procedure. This pertains, for example, to breast tumors in teen-age girls. These are so rarely cancerous that it is safe to go with this statistical experience.

What you're telling me then is that I will not know in advance, not until I wake up, whether or not my breast has been removed.

That's true.

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