According to a new study, spending additional 10 minutes on the breast cancer surgery may help many breast cancer patients avoid second surgery. By introducing small changes in the surgery, this could be achieved.

According to Dr. Anees Chagpar, of Yale Cancer Centre, the number of women who have to undergo a second time surgery to remove the disease could be halved by this. Approximately 50,000 women in Britain are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. And nearly 30,000 go in for surgery to remove their tumors. However, 20% of these women have to go for a second operation, when the first procedure is not able to remove all the disease.

As per Chagpar, the number could be reduced by just removing a little more tissue during the first surgery. The research was put forward at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. It is the world's biggest cancer conference held in Chicago.

Chagpar said that one in five women in the US and UK undergoes surgery for the second time on the tumor that was removed but shows the presence of cancer.

According to Chagpar, "With a very simple technique of taking a little more tissue at the first operation, that takes an extra 10 minutes in the operating room, we can reduce the chances that somebody would need to go back a second time by 50 per cent". The findings of the study have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.