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Prior to surgery you may meet an anesthesiologist, who is a specialist in inducing anesthesia during surgery. Anesthesiologist will evaluate you to see if your body can withstand the stress of anesthesia and surgery. The chosen type of surgery will have influence on the choice of anesthesia, duration of surgical procedure and length of hospital stay. If you are having a mastectomy or lymph node dissection, general
anesthesia is usually preferred. If you are only having a simple mastectomy it may be performed
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using local anesthesia. A modified radical mastectomy with lymph node dissection may take about two to three hours to complete. The duration of your hospital stay will again depend on the type of surgery and can vary from no hospital stay to two or three days. If the patient develops some complications after surgery the hospital stay could be longer. A surgical drain may be placed at the site of surgery to remove the collection of blood from the surgical bed. This drain may stay in place for one two weeks.
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