Purpose of reviewTraditional therapy for ductal carcinomain situhas been mastectomy or conservative surgery plus radiation, but interest in more expeditious therapies such as conservative surgery alone is growing. A first step in considering changes in an already successful treatment is to evaluate tumor and patient factors that may predict outcome. Identifying and understanding these prognostic factors will aid researchers in designing new treatment paradigms. The purpose of this review is to assess the value of commonly accepted potential prognostic factors in patients with ductal carcinomain situ.Recent findingsDuring this past year several retrospective studies have evaluated putative prognostic factors in ductal carcinomain situ. We will compare these later publications with results from prospective randomized trials and one meta-analysis.SummaryThere does not appear to be unanimous agreement on the prognostic factors associated with increased risk of local failure in patients treated with conservative surgery and radiation for ductal carcinomain situ. In our chosen papers, however, comedonecrosis and positive margins are most likely prognostic factors for increased local failure.