Many women diagnosed with breast cancer in one breast choose a double mastectomy in hopes of preventing the cancer from spreading to the other breast. However, a new study reveals that doing so does not actually increase survival rates.
Study – Published on 25th July JAMA Oncology – Between 2000 and 2019, more than 661,000 women were diagnosed with cancer in one breast. These cases range from ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive stage zero breast cancer, to stage 3 invasive breast cancer.
Women who have had a lumpectomy or mastectomy have only a 7% chance of developing cancer in the other breast. The researchers also found that removing the other breast with a double mastectomy did not confer a survival advantage.
Over the 20 years studied, breast cancer deaths were similar in all groups, with 8.5% of women with lumps, 9% of women with mastectomies, and 8.5% of women with double mastectomies.
“It seems like a contradiction,” he said Lead author Dr. Steven Narod, a breast cancer researcher and physician at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. “If you get a contralateral breast cancer, your risk of dying increases. But preventing it doesn’t improve your survival.
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The study raises important questions about contralateral breast cancers — a second breast cancer that develops in the opposite breast more than six months after the first cancer is diagnosed — and how breast cancer spreads, Narod said.
Additionally, the study notes that these results may not apply to those who test positive for the BRCA gene, which puts them at higher risk. As stated therein CDC, 1 in 500 women in the United States have the genetic variant. In these cases, researchers – and American Cancer Society – It is worth considering double mastectomies as preventive surgery.
One in eight women in America Diagnosed with breast cancer, and mammograms are vital for early detection.
In May 2023, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force lowered the recommended age for breast cancer screening after an increase in detection in younger women. Science now shows that all women should be screened every year at age 40, which could save 19% more lives, the task force said.
In addition to keeping up with regular screenings, health officials advise women of all ages to practice “breast self-awareness,” which is how a person’s own breasts typically look and feel, so they’re more likely to recognize any. Unusually when doing a Breast self-examination.
