July 2, 1981

Surgery that spares most of the breast can be as effective as radical mastectomy in treating women with early breast cancer, according to a major study done in Italy and published yesterday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study, considered the best to date examining two such procedures, has thus far shown no difference in cancer recurrence or survival between women who had a partial mastectomy followed by radiation therapy and women who underwent the older, more disfiguring operation. Although previous studies suggested this, the new study is the only large-scale, well-controlled study to show it. The researchers concluded that ''radical mastectomy appears to involve unnecessary mutilation'' in patients with early breast cancer.

Garbage collection in northern and Central New Jersey was disrupted today after a teamsters local representing truck drivers struck an association of 35 privately owned refuse haulers. The walkout, which began late last night, was said to affect about 2.6 million people in 108 communities in 12 counties - Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, Middlesex, Passaic, Union, Mercer, Monmouth, Ocean, Sussex and Burlington, where only one town was affected. The strike forced homeowners and the operators of restaurants, hospitals, factories and office buildings to scramble for safe ways to store potentially hazardous, perishable trash. In Elizabeth, Mayor Thomas Dunn declared a state of emergency and issued an order requiring all residents, industries and commercial establishments to separate food stuffs from such nonspoilable items as papers, cardboard and cans that can be stored without raising health risks. The perishable items, Mr. Dunn's office said, will be picked up by four city-owned compacting trucks once the trash has been declared a health hazard.

Israel's religious parties, crucial to the formation of the next government, indicated today that they would prefer entering a coalition with Prime Minister Menachem Begin's Likud bloc rather than with the Labor Party of Shimon Peres. As ballots still being counted from yesterday's elections continued to show a close race, Mr. Begin went into negotiations on such a coalition, with aides predicting an agreement next week. The Prime Minister met briefly with the head of the National Religious Party, Interior Minister Yosef Burg, who said that most of his members wanted a government headed by Mr. Begin. Rabbi Pinhas Menachem Alter, chairman of the other major religious party, Agudath Israel, was quoted by the Israeli press as calling any arrangement with Labor ''remote'' and expressing pride in having been part of the Begin Government for the last four years.

Patrick J. Cunningham, former Democratic chairman of New York State, was indicted in Manhattan yesterday on Federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion, perjury and obstruction of justice. Mr. Cunningham, a 53-year-old lawyer who also served as the party's Bronx leader until 1978, remains a member of the Democratic National Committee. Denying the charges against him, he said he would be vindicated in a trial and would not resign his national committee post.

HUNDREDS of Manhattan apartment dwellers are waiting anxiously by their telephones this summer, some with suitcases already packed, for the call that may never come. They are actors and musicians with summer jobs on the road, teachers and analysts with summer vacations ahead, and the fortunate ones with second homes in the mountains, the Hamptons or the south of France. They are waiting for the attractive couple with excellent references to take loving care of their apartments and pay up to thousands of dollars for the privilege. But many wait in vain.