Background: We carried out a meta-analysis to determine the effectiveness of breast conservation therapy (BCT) or mastectomy (MT) for stage I or stage II breast cancer.
Methods: A fully recursive literature search was conducted in the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register Databases, Medline, EMBASE and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database in any language. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were considered for inclusion. Analyses were carried out using RevMan software.
Results: In all, 18 RCTs including a total of 9388 patients were included. The meta-analysis showed that the overall survival in 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 years and the locoregional recurrence rate in 3, 5, 15 and 20 years were not statistically significantly different between group BCT and group MT, but 10-year locoregional recurrence rate increased in group BCT. The sensitivity analysis indicated that both overall survival and locoregional recurrence rate were not statistically significant difference between group BCT and group MT. In the subgroup analysis, there was no significant difference in OS and locoregional recurrence rate between group BCT and group MT, but 20-year locoregional recurrence rate was statistically significantly higher in group BCT than group MT for women with tumors 2 cm or smaller.
Conclusion: BCT was better choice than MT for women with stage I or stage II breast cancer.