This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). This article has been retracted at the request of the Author. This conference abstract has been retracted at the request of the authors. The research presented in the abstract was undertaken by the authors as a service review and subsequently submitted for presentation as a poster at the Association of Breast Surgery Conference, which took place on the 21 st and 22 nd May 2012. The authors accepted to present the poster at the Conference, but subsequently withdrew it. However, the abstract had already been published in the European Journal of Surgical Oncology, together with other abstracts from the conference.The study did not receive ethical approval, and there is disagreement as to whether ethical approval was required. In addition, some patients included in the study were treated by a breast cancer surgeon currently under investigation for using a surgical technique not deemed to be best practice, which may have affected the results. The authors have therefore requested the retraction of this conference abstract and apologise to the readers of the European Journal of Surgical Oncology.