Vol. 10, Issue 7, Part B (2024)

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women worldwide with more than 2 million new cases in 2020. Breast cancer usually evolves silently. Most of the patients discover their disease during their routine screening. Others may present with an accidentally discovered breast lump, change of breast shape or size, or nipple discharge. According to the World Health Organization, improving breast cancer outcome and survival by early detection remains the cornerstone of breast cancer control. With advances in screening, diagnosis, and treatment, the death rate for breast cancer has declined. Today there are various approaches, which can be made for the treatment of the cancer of breast such as surgery, radiation therapy chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and recently nanotechnology and gene therapy. Mastectomy is a complete surgical removal of the breast glandular tissues with the aim to remove all in-breast neoplasia and/or glandular tissue. There are different types of mastectomy procedures which differ in the extent of resection of additional tissues. Post-operative complications after breast surgery include pain, restriction of shoulder range of motion (ROM), numbness and heaviness, loss of strength, sensory deficit, and poor quality of life. Post-surgery interventions are needed to improve physical, psychological, social, emotional and functional wellbeing of the patient. A search of articles was carried out with no time limit till April 2024 using various databases such as PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, CINHAL, Semantic scholar and Google scholar. Search terms included- breast cancer, breast surgery, pain, range of motion, muscle strength, quality of life, lymphedema. This is review summarizes the interventional modalities that are being applied for early rehabilitation after breast cancer surgery.