For decades now breast cancer tissue resection has been the primary method of choice for treating the disease, however this was not the case throughout the history of medicine. For centuries breast cancer was considered to be incurable via surgical approaches and that only early, low grade, lesions can be removed safely. Not until the 19 th century, an increase in primary surgical therapy for the disease (mainly radical mastectomies) was becoming evident due to the teachings of Morgagni, in addition to a complete re-conceivement of the etiological process of the disease by Le Dran. Currently, practitioners have achieved a very high level of proficiency in treating the disease via continuous refinement of the aforementioned facts. This resulted in tissue and organ sparing local surgical approaches, including wide local excisions through para-areolar incisions and even skin and nipple-sparing mastectomies, which have long overpassed the unnecessary and primitive high morbidity approaches performed in the earlier attempts to treat breast cancer. KEYWORDS breast surgery techniques, breast cancer treatment, breast history Early history of breast cancer Currently, breast cancer (BC) surgical excision remains the gold standard for treating the disease and due to its significant social and economic impact, researchers and clinicians have attempted to identify the pathogenic processes giving rise to the disease. However it took centuries for medical practitioners to reach these conclusions. Nonetheless, even throughout the ages breast cancer has been capturing the attention of medicine and surgery practitioners universally, with the Smith Surgical Papyrus (3000-2500 b.c.