Objective   Until recently, no consensus has been reached about the treatment of primary tumor in patients with meta-static breast cancer, and whether or not to excise it has not yet reached agreement. This study aimed to evaluate the value of surgical and nonsurgical treatment of primary tumor by analyzing the clinical data of patients with metastatic breast cancer.

  Methods   This review includes the data of 120 metastatic breast cancer patients. Their clinical data in Xiangyang Central Hospital (Hubei province) from January 2005 to December 2012 were collected. All cases were divided into surgical and nonsurgical groups, and the overall survival and symptomatic local progression rates were analyzed.

  Results   The 120 patients had a median follow-up of 52 months (range = 10-92 months). A total of 55 cases were in the surgical group, 30 of whom had surgery before the metastatic diagnosis, and 65 cases were in the nonsurgical group. No significant differences were observed regarding the tumor classification, lymph-node classification, and metastatic site of the tumor in the two groups. Patients in the surgical group experienced longer overall survival (49 months vs. 33 months, P=0.016) and lower rates of symptomatic local progression (14.5% vs. 46.2%, P > 0.001).

  Conclusions   This study demonstrated that the overall survival and symptomatic local control in the surgical group were better than those in the nonsurgical group. However, this hypothesis remains to be proved by multicenter clinical trials.