A major international study has revealed that thousands of women with breast cancer could avoid invasive surgery to remove lymph nodes under the arm, a procedure that often leads to long-term arm swelling, or lymphoedema.

The trial followed 2,540 women from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Italy, all aged around 61, whose cancer had spread to one or two nearby lymph nodes.Patients were randomly assigned either to undergo axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) with radiotherapy or radiotherapy alone.

Results presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting showed that omitting surgery did not reduce survival rates; in fact, five-year survival was slightly higher in the non-surgery group.Women who avoided the surgery reported significantly better arm function and fewer long-term complications.Experts suggest that ALND should now be considered more as a diagnostic tool rather than a therapeutic necessity in cases of limited nodal spread.

The findings have significant implications for improving quality of life for breast cancer survivors, reducing the risk of lymphoedema, and potentially reshaping surgical guidelines worldwide.However, researchers emphasise the need for further long-term studies to confirm these results in larger populations.