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Worried Patients May Choose Unnecessary Double-Mastectomy
The survey, conducted at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and published in the Annals of Surgery, found that half of women with cancer in 1 breast are interested in removing their healthy breast to avoid a second cancer.
Half of women with cancer in 1 breast - but no gene mutations that increase their risk - are interested in removing their healthy breast to avoid a second cancer there, a small survey finds.
Women with less cancer knowledge and greater worry about developing a new tumor were most likely to want the preventive removal of the healthy breast. But after talking to their surgeons, only 10% went ahead with the procedure. “There have been numerous public figures that have talked about their experiences with prophylactic surgery,” said lead author Patricia A. Parker, a behavioral researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
“It is important for women to know that their risk factors for getting a cancer in the other breast may not be the same as these women and that the chances of a recurrence of the primary breast cancer are more likely than developing a new cancer in the other breast,” Parker told Reuters Health by email.
Read the complete article on Reuters: http://reut.rs/1EhebWA
Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Penn Medicine's Dr Justin Bekelman
December 19th 2023Justin Bekelman, MD, director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, sat with our hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, for our final episode of 2023 to discuss the importance of collaboration between academic medicine and community oncology and testing innovative cancer care delivery in these settings.
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