BATON ROUGE — About 2.3 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually.

Treatment for breast cancer may include personalized therapies or surgery.

"There's only two surgical options: lumpectomy and mastectomy. But there's 100 reasons why women choose one thing or another. Some of that can be cancer-based, some of it can be family history and genetic space, some of it can be personal peace of mind," said Sarah McLaughlin, a breast surgical oncologist at the Mayo Clinic.

A lumpectomy removes the cancerous tissue and margin areas, while a mastectomy removes the entire breast.

Dr. McLaughlin explains that decades of research have shown similar long-term survival rates for both operations.

"If you don't need a mastectomy, you don't do better or live longer because you do a more radical operation," she said.

Surgical innovations are improving care and quality of life. Some patients no longer need lymph nodes under the armpit removed, and techniques remove less skim while preserving the nipple and areola complex.

"That means placing the incisions remote from the actual site of cancer and then rearranging the breast tissue within what remains," McLaughlin said.