{"id":7075,"date":"2016-03-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/mind-body-the-rate-of-double-mastectomies-has-tripled-in-10-years-study\/"},"modified":"2016-03-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T00:00:00","slug":"mind-body-the-rate-of-double-mastectomies-has-tripled-in-10-years-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/mind-body-the-rate-of-double-mastectomies-has-tripled-in-10-years-study\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rate of Double Mastectomies Has Tripled In 10 Years: Study"},"content":{"rendered":"
Cancer treatments, especially for breast cancer, have become remarkably sophisticated and are responsible for saving millions of lives. But in some cases, the inclination toward surgery in one or both breasts may be unnecessary—or at least not without major complications. That has a growing number of experts saying that the standard ways in which breast cancer is treated verges on overkill—and needs to be rethought<\/a>. A new study published Friday in the Annals of Surgery<\/em> adds nuance to the picture.<\/p>\n The rate at which such surgeries are performed has skyrocketed. An oft repeated fact is that number of women with breast cancer in one breast who choose to have both breasts removed—called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM)—has doubled in a decade. Now, in the new study, scientists report that, in fact, rates of women who choose CPM tripled between 2002 to 2012. Nearly 50% of women who get CPM also undergo reconstructive surgery, compared with 16% in the women who have only one breast removed.<\/p>\n “What we saw is that the rates of prophylactic mastectomy is not only increasing, but increasing more quickly,” says the study’s senior author Dr. Mehra Golshan, distinguished chair of surgical oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. That trend remained similar regardless of the woman’s age, how advanced her breast cancer was at diagnosis and despite its hormone status—meaning whether the breast tumors contained estrogen receptors or not.<\/p>\n RELATED:<\/strong> Why Doctors Are Rethinking Breast Cancer<\/a><\/p>\n At the same time, the overall survival among women opting for CPM is no different from that of women choosing lumpectomy, in which only a portion of the affected breast is removed. And a paper published in early March found CPM does not markedly improve a woman’s quality of life. That concerns some scientists and doctors. “If I can say that the prophylactic mastectomy is going to keep you alive longer, then absolutely, that’s something we should definitely strive for,” says Golshan. “But it really made no difference in terms of overall outcome and survival.”<\/p>\n RELATED:<\/strong> A Major Shift in Breast Cancer Understanding<\/a><\/p>\n So why are women continuing to undergo invasive surgery on a healthy breast? For one, there is a lingering—though inaccurate—belief that cancer in one breast will spread to the other. “Cancer spreading from the left breast to the right breast or from the right breast to the left breast almost never happens,” says Golshan. And while it’s true that women diagnosed with cancer in one breast may develop an entirely new<\/em> cancer in the opposite breast, even that rate is relatively low and not enough to prompt additional screening or any other action.<\/p>\n