A study published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology online has found more than a 3 percent increase in women choosing to have double mastectomies. In 1998 just under 2 percent of women chose to have a healthy breast removed at the same time as the cancerous one but in 2003 that number had risen to 5 percent.
The study used data from only a small portion of the approximately 200,000 diagnosed with breast cancer each year and if their figures are correct, this translates into 8,000 to 10,000 patients that are choosing to have the double mastectomy procedure called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy.
“The comment patients make is, ‘I just want to be done with it,’” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Todd M. Tuttle, chief of surgical oncology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. “They never want to have another mammogram again; they never want to have another biopsy again.”
While removal of the healthy breast decreases the risk of cancer in that breast, the risk is not completely gone because some tissue can remain and because there is the possibility of carrying a genetic mutation that is associated with the increase risk of developing breast cancer in the other breast.
Experts believe that the improvements in mastectomies and breast-reconstruction techniques may be making the option of a double reconstruction less daunting and thus increases the contralateral prophylactic mastectomy choice.
[Source: NY Times]
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Posted by: Mia | November 17, 2007 11:11 AM | Permalink to Comment