ReviewBreast cancer (Dove Medical Press)2023
Role of Surgery in Metastatic Breast Cancer: Insights from a Narrative Review.
Review in Breast cancer (Dove Medical Press), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association between primary tumor surgery and survival in patients withTranslational cancer research · 2026Article
- Improved stage-specific survival in screen-detected breast cancer in Denmark: a cohort study.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2026Article
- From Feasibility to Individualization: Surgery for Breast Cancer Liver and Lung Metastases.Cancers · 2026Review
- Where do breast cancer patients after curative-intent surgery stand in their Health-related Quality of Life (Hr-QoL) outcomes compared with health institution-based normal clients? A comparative cross-sectional study.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast with gallbladder metastasis: a rare case report.World journal of surgical oncology · 2025Article
- Predicting Outcomes of Breast-Conserving Surgery in Patients with Breast Cancer Using the Modified 5-Item Frailty Index: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Annals of surgical oncology · 2025Article
- Rare case report: non-mass invasive ductal carcinoma presenting with rectal and cervical lymph node metastasis as the initial symptom.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Article
- Prevention of Post-Mastectomy Pain Syndrome: A Review of Recent Literature on Perioperative Interventions.Current oncology reports · 2024Review
- Targeting Breast Cancer: The Familiar, the Emerging, and the Uncharted Territories.Biomolecules · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Metastatic breast cancer is difficult to cure and has a worse prognosis with higher rates of mortality. Recently, breast surgery is believed to improve the survival rates among these women, but due to limited evidence, definite conclusions cannot be made. Therefore, we undertook this narrative review to synthesize the evidence from existing studies to assess the effectiveness of locoregional surgery and surgery of metastatic sites in improving the outcomes among women diagnosed with metastatic cancer disease along with the summary of current treatment guidelines. We reviewed PubMed and Embase and included both observational studies and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that were published in English between 2000 and 2021. Outcomes were either survival, quality of life, toxicity related to local treatment assessed by mortality at the end of one month, progression-free survival, and breast cancer-specific survival. The main effect size assessed was hazard ratio with their 95% CIs. After literature search, we found 8 observational studies and 3 RCTs. The findings of the observational studies revealed that breast cancer surgery improves survival from 30% to 50% among women. However, findings from RCTs were mixed for local and distant progression survival. Surgery improved the local progression-free survival but worsened the distant progression-free survival. Besides, there was no effect of breast surgery on quality of life. Regarding the surgery of metastatic site, studies are complex with mixed findings and variation in survival depending upon the type of metastatic site and response to initial systematic therapy and other factors. Based on the existing mixed evidence, it is not possible to make firm and definite conclusions about the effectiveness of breast surgery in improving the survival or quality of life among women with metastatic breast cancer. In future, more RCTs are required with a larger sample size to confirm the findings of observational studies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.