Mastectomy: An Option For Breast Cancer Patients

Few women have regrets when choosing preventive mastectomy, reveals a study by A M Geiger and others in a ‘Journal of Clinical Oncology.’ Women, at an elevated risk of cancer are opting for double mastectomy, as a protective means against the deadly disease.

Dr Todd. M. Turtle said “Although there may be sound reasons for under going double mastectomy the procedure does not improve breast cancer survival.”

The decision to have surgery should be thought out properly. It is not an emergency, women typically spend 6 months to 1 year or even several months considering mastectomy and saying yes or no.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy Chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society states. “When I started practice in mid -1970’s there were surgeons who had the attitude that doing a mastectomy was no big deal, it was incredibly insensitive.”

There is a need to balance the potential benefits of preventive surgery with the side effects. While removing the breast can reduce risk of breast cancer it also brings radical changes in the quality of life, the higher the risk of cancer, the more benefits from surgery. Removal can reduce the risk of new breast cancer by about 90%.

The decision comes from mixed feelings. Mastectomy gives a women peace of mind but alternatively she may have serious concerns about her body. It should be remembered that no procedure, including surgery, totally eliminates the risk of cancer. Removal of breast is no surety that cancer shall not develop in the area where the breast used to be.

A research funded by National Cancer Institute showed that out of 519 women who had preventive mastectomy, 86.5% were satisfied with the results and had no second thoughts, and 76% were very content with the quality of their life.

Genetic tests over the past decade have made it easier for doctors to predict which high risk women will develop breast cancer. Finding that you are at a risk of breast cancer forces one to face many questions, one being, whether to have preventive mastectomy in the hope of reducing the risk of cancer.

Besides family and personal medical history all women are at risk just by being a female, and advancing in age. The over all study of double mastectomy climbed from 1.85 % 1988 to 4.5% in 2003. Among mastectomy, the number rose from 4.2% to 11.0%.The trend was for patients at any cancer stage.

Ann Greger, a cancer researcher, with Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, that mastectomy reduced the risk of the women who had it by 95%. According to her a number of alternatives are available like removal of ovaries that reduces risk by 30-40%, use of tamoxifen which lowers the risk by half. Regular monitoring with MRI tests is also effective.

Lichtenfeld feels mastectomy is an option for women at extreme risk. On the preventive front “this is a pretty radical operation.”

Every woman diagnosed with breast cancer, has to ask herself this question: for me, how much risk is enough, to make a decision to remove a healthy breast, after cancer has affected my other breast.