A fear of recurring cancer is prompting many women to have both breasts removed following a cancer diagnosis and such surgery may be unnecessary, according to new research.
Three quarters of women who had both breasts removed even though only one breast had cancer were found to be at a very low risk of cancer in the clean breast, states the study by researchers at the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.
"When you receive a breast cancer diagnosis it's obviously a very emotional and anxiety-provoking time," said Dr. Tari King, deputy chief and director of research for the breast surgical service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told CBS News. He was not involved in the study.
"And the decision about what kind of surgery you're going to have is the first decision women have to make," said King.
The study reviewed 1,447 cancer patients, ages 25 through 79 years old, between June 2005 and February 2007. None of the patients had a recurring cancer. The women in the study represented 10 percent of all females with breast cancer.
Of the participants, 34 percent underwent unilateral mastectomy and 78 percent had breast conservation surgery.
"Women appear to be using worry over cancer recurrence to choose contralateral prophylactic mastectomy. This does not make sense, because having a nonaffected breast removed will not reduce the risk of recurrence in the affected breast," said Sarah T. Hawley, PhD, MPH, from the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and the Veteran Affairs Healthcare System in Ann Arbor, Mich., in a press statement.
The researchers advise women diagnosed with cancer in one breast to discuss the risks and benefits of removing both breasts before moving ahead with the surgery.
The research is just the latest in a wave of new studies on breast cancer and related surgical procedures and survival therapies.
Breast cancer affects about 48,000 women in the UK per year but while breast cancer surgeries can be necessary and helpful in some cases, it appears that many of the patients undergo needless surgical procedure.
Findings of a study presented at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Glasgow suggest hundreds of British women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), an early form of breast cancer, may be undergoing unnecessary mastectomies.
The researchers pointed out that in some cases, patients who had their breast removed would have been better off having lumpectomy, also known as breast conservation surgery, which only removes the cancer or the abnormal tissue in the breast, because the abnormal cells in the milk ducts have just started to turn cancerous and haven't yet spread out to other parts of the breast.
In March, as Tech Times reported, a study claimed that Vitamin D might hold the key to breast cancer survival, as women with high levels of the vitamin are found to have a survival rate twice that of those with low levels.
