Definitive surgery in stage IV breast cancer: A systematic review

ABSTRACT

Methods: Using the key words "surgery stage IV breast cancer", a PubMed search for all related articles published in the English language, between January 1999 to December 2009, was done. Of 292 articles yielded by the search, 25 articles focused on the impact of surgery in stage IV breast cancer. Full texts of these of these articles were then collated for this review. Results: No randomized controlled trials comparing the outcome of surgery versus no surgery in metastatic breast cancer have been published thus far. The search yielded only heterogenous data from several retrospective studies for which no systematic reviews or meta-analysis had been done. A summary of these retrospective data was done and reported herein. The reports are grouped into two those based on population registries, and those coming from single institutions.