Women with early stage breast cancer who are treated with lumpectomy and radiotherapy have significantly better survival than women who have a mastectomy, a retrospective study of US data has found.1

Researchers analyzed data in the California cancer registry from all 112 154 women in the state who had been given a diagnosis of early stage, invasive breast cancer between 1990 and 2004 and who were treated with either lumpectomy and radiotherapy or mastectomy and were followed to December 2009. Just over half (55%) had breast conserving therapy, and the remainder had mastectomy without radiation.

“Despite randomized trials suggesting that breast conserving …