Curative effect of immediate reconstruction after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: The safety of mastectomy (MT) with immediate reconstruction (IR) in breast cancer patients who have completed neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is not apparent. This meta-analysis aims to systematically evaluate the differences in surgical complications and postoperative survival rates between MT with IR (MT+IR) and MT alone in post-NAC breast cancer patients.Methods: The PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, WanFang Data, and CNKI databases were systematically searched, and cohort studies of post-NAC breast cancer patients with MT+IR or MT surgery were collected from databases inception to May 25, 2023. Two researchers independently executed literature screening, data extraction, and bias risk assessment, and meta-analysis was performed using Revman 5.3 software.Results: A total of 12 studies involving 7378 cases who have accepted NAC were collected for this study. The results showed that compared with the MT group, the relative risk of surgical complications in the MT+IR group was increased by 44%, with no statistical significant [RR=1.44, 95% CI (0.99, 2.09), P=0.06]. While among study subgroups with a median follow-up of less than one year, more surgical complications occurred in the MT+IR group by 23% [RR=1.23, 95% CI (1.00, 1.52), P=0.05]. There was no significant differences in overall survival, disease-free survival, local relapse-free survival, and distant metastasis-free survival between the two groups.Conclusions: Compared with the MT, MT+IR does not affect the postoperative survival rate in post-NAC breast cancer patients, accompanied by a mild increase in short-term surgical complications, but no significant difference in long-term complications.