Short-Term and Long-Term Outcomes of Breast-Conserving Surgery in Patients With Breast Cancer: A Non-Randomized Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND: Surgical advances in breast cancer contribute to improving the postoperative quality of life.

AIM: The study aimed to evaluate the short-term and long-term outcomes of breast-conserving surgery.

METHODS: The study included the treatment outcomes reported for 194 patients diagnosed with breast cancer who had been admitted to the Samara Regional Clinical Cancer Hospital between 2011 and 2020. Group 1 (n = 96) included patients who had undergone conventional breast-conserving surgeries. For group 2 (n = 98), a modified approach, described as “Choosing the extent of surgery for patients diagnosed with breast cancer,” was used. This technique involved the placement of the lateral adipocutaneous flap in the axillary region, with the free edge positioned as close to the nervus thoracicus longus as possible. The analysis focused on operative time and intraoperative blood loss. The disease-free and overall survival probabilities were estimated using the Kaplan–Meyer method. The patients were also asked to complete the Breast-Q questionnaire prior to surgery and six months after the treatment. The statistical analysis was performed using the parametric (Student’s t test) and non-parametric (Mann–Whitney test, chi-squared test [χ²], and Fisher’s exact test) methods. The significance level was set at p < 0.05.

RESULTS: The short-term surgical outcomes were not significantly different between the groups. The mean operative time was 76.3 ± 23.3 minutes in group 1 and 65.5 ± 18.3 minutes in group 2 (p < 0.001), with the intraoperative blood loss recorded at 53.1 ± 26.2 mL and 49.0 ± 14.3 mL, respectively (p = 0.18). Postoperatively, persistent non-infected seroma (>14 days) was identified in 19 patients from group 1 and 7 patients from group 2 (p = 0.009).

CONCLUSION: The proposed method provides a significant reduction in the incidence of complications, with long-term outcomes comparable to those observed in the conventional treatment group.