Abstract: Objective To investigate the difference and advantages of breast conservation surgery and segmental mastectomy[also known as breast-conserving surgery (BCS)] and traditional modified mastectomy for early stage breast cancer. Methods One hundred and twenty breast cancer patients admitted in our hospital from 2012 to 2013 were randomly divided into control group and observation group, with 60 cases in each group. The patients in the control group were treated with traditional modified mastectomy. The patients in the observation group were treated with BCS and exclusion of axillary lymph node biopsy, which were performed sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) biopsy with intraoperative frozen section (FS) and proved negative on FS. The patients in the postoperative group were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy, endocrine therapy or radiotherapy according to the postoperative pathology, lymph node metastasis (observation group only) and immunohistochemistry. And the patients in the observation group were also treated with adjuvant radiotherapy. The operation time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative complications and postoperative rehabilitation, as well as the survival rate, recurrence rate and metastasis rate of 3-year were compared between the two groups. Results The operation time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative hospitalization time, postoperative complication rate and postoperative rehabilitation time were significantly lower in the observation group than those in the control group (P<0.01). There was no significant difference in survival rate,recurrence rate and metastasis rate of 3-year between the two groups (P>0.05). Conclusion Compared with traditional modified mastectomy, breast conservation surgery and segmental mastectomy can effectively reduce the operation time, intraoperative blood loss, at the same, it does not decrease the postoperative survival rate and not increase the recurrence and transfer rate. It is a great therapy and worthy of clinical promotion.