One of the chief concerns of the medical staff of the Institut
Gustave-Roussy is to find the right indications for treating every
cancer site, and particularly cancer of the breast. The best treatment
is the one which offers the patient the best chance of recovery, yet is
at the same time the simplest and least mutilating [36]. It is our
policy at the Institut, rather than to lay down a series of therapeutic
measures which are applied systematically to all patients, to be
selective, that is, to determine the best treatment for each individual
patient. We make extensive use of prognostic factors, not merely for
retrospective assessment when the treatment is completed, but very early
on-during treatment or even before it is begun; thus, the treatment may
be changed as a result, or simplified from the outset, when it is
thought the outcome will be equally satisfactory. Our appreciation of
the prognostic value of this or that clinical or biological factor is
still far from complete, and we are continuing our studies in this
direction.