Breast conserving surgery (BCS) for breast cancer is widely performed. This study aimed to identify the characteristics of the 100 most cited articles in BCS research. The 100 most cited articles were retrieved from the Web of Science datasbase. Using bibliometric tools, the contributions of countries, institutions, authors, and of research development were analyzed. The country with the highest number of manuscripts in the top 100 was the United States (n = 59). The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and University of Pennsylvania each published 21 articles. Bartelink H, Harris JR, and Morrow M each published eight articles. Among the top 100 most cited articles, hotspots focused on breast-conserving margins, recurrence, distant metastases, radiotherapy, and some controlled trials. Surgical margin, recurrence, distant metastases, radiation therapy are the hot topics in these 100 articles. There may be new radiotherapy modalities to improve the efficacy of post-operative radiotherapy in the future. The results of this review provide breast surgeons with research highlights and hot spots in the field of BCS and predict the future.