Objective To investigate the clinical effect of different surgical approaches for subcutaneous mastectomy and breast reconstruction in the treatment of early-stage breast cancer. Methods A total of 64 patients with early-stage breast cancer admitted to our hospital from March 2020 to March 2022 were selected as the research objects. According to the different surgical approaches, they were divided into study group and control group, with 32 patients in each group. The control group was treated with submammary fold incision, and the study group was treated with lateral chest wall incision. The aesthetic effect, surgical indicators and complications were compared between the two groups. Results The excellent and good rate of aesthetic effect in the study group (96.88%) was higher than that in the control group (75.00%) (P0.05). The operation time and incision healing time of the study group were longer than those of the control group (P