Anesthetic techniques and recurrence of breast cancer: unanswered questions

Over the last decade, a potential link between anesthetic techniques and the recurrence of breast cancer has been an important and controversial issue for anesthesiologists and breast surgeons. This controversy was instigated by a radical retrospective study, which reported that the anesthetic technique employed influenced the recurrence (and hence survival) of cancer in patients that underwent mastectomy with axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) (1).