Using the numerical solution of the full Maxwell-Bloch equations without the slowly varying envelope approximation and the rotating-wave approximation, propagation behavior of few-cycle laser pulse in a dense ladder-type three-level atomic medium is investigated and it is compared with the case in the corresponding dilute medium. It is found that, in the propagation process, time evolution of the pulse in the dense medium is obviously different from that in the dilute medium, and the difference will become more evident with increasing of the initial pulse area. When the initial pulse area is smaller, in the propagating process, the pulse shape in the dilute medium just have a small change; the pulse shape in the dense medium has considerable variation but the pulse splitting doesn't occur. When the initial pulse area is larger enough, for the dense medium case, the pulse splits into sub-pulses with different numbers and shapes at different propagation distances; while for the dilute medium case, variation of the pulse shape is still smaller in propagation process. The cause producing above difference is from two effects in the dense medium: the effect of the local-field correction (LFC) from the near dipole-dipole interaction and effect of stronger polarization field than that in the dilute medium. In which the effect of stronger polarization field plays a main role, but the role of LFC also cannot be neglected，and the stronger polarization field is due to the atomic density increasing.