Twenty-Year Follow-up of a Randomized Trial Comparing Total Mastectomy, Lumpectomy, and Lumpectomy plus Irradiation for the Treatment of Invasive Breast Cancer

In 1976, we initiated a randomized trial to determine whether lumpectomy with or without radiation therapy was as effective as total mastectomy for the treatment of invasive breast cancer.

A total of 1851 women for whom follow-up data were available and nodal status was known underwent randomly assigned treatment consisting of total mastectomy, lumpectomy alone, or lumpectomy and breast irradiation. Kaplan-Meier and cumulative-incidence estimates of the outcome were obtained.