Health-related quality of life following breast reconstruction compared to total mastectomy and breast-conserving surgery among breast cancer survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The present review evaluated health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) outcomes in surgical breast cancer survivors who received breast reconstruction (BR), breast-conservation surgery (BCS) or mastectomy (M), and whether HR-QoL domains across generic and disease/surgery-specific questionnaires are compatible. Six electronic databases were searched for appropriate observational studies. Standardized scores for different HR-QoL domains in the BR, BCS, and M treatment groups were extracted from each study for the purpose of a meta-analysis. Using Stata version 14.0, a random-effects meta-analysis model was adopted for each outcome variable to estimate the effect size, 95% CI—confidence intervals, and statistical significance. Sixteen of the 18 eligible studies with BR ( n = 1474) and BCS ( n = 2612) or M ( n = 1458) groups were included in the meta-analysis. The BR group exhibited a better physical health ( k = 12; 0.1, 95% CI 0.04, 0.24) and body image ( k = 12; 0.50, 95% CI 0.10, 0.89) than the M group. However, the two groups exhibited comparable social health ( k = 13; 0.1, 95% CI −0.07, 0.37), emotional health ( k = 13; −0.08, 95% CI − 0.41, 0.25), global health ( k = 7; 0.1, 95% CI − 0.01, 0.27), and sexual health ( k =11; 0.2, 95% CI − 0.02,0.57). There was no clear evidence of the superiority of BR to BCS for all the six domains. These results suggest that HR-QoL outcomes in BR and BCS groups are better than the M group. Therefore, women opting for BR or BCS are likely to report fairly better HR-QoL outcomes than M. However, due to the significant heterogeneity observed in most BR versus BCS outcomes, developing a unified questionnaire incorporating both breast/surgery-specific and generic HR-QoL domains is warranted.