Help Making a Prophylactic Mastectomy Decision
Reported January 28, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Women diagnosed with breast cancer have a greater risk of developing cancer in their opposite breast. Identifying which women have the greatest risk of contralateral breast cancer could help patients make more informed decisions regarding prophylactic mastectomies.
While a fairly drastic measure, some women may choose removal of their unaffected breast for a variety of reasons, including because their physician recommended it, fear of another breast cancer diagnosis, desire for cosmetic symmetry and family history of breast or other cancers. If a physician was able to assess which patients are at the highest risk of contralateral breast cancer, many patients could preserve their healthy breast.
Researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston looked at 542 patients with breast cancer in one breast and who had a double mastectomy between 2000 and 2007. Of those patients, 5 percent had contralateral breast cancer while 15 percent had abnormal cells in their other breast that could put them at risk for breast cancer development.
Three independent factors were linked with contralateral breast cancer: when cancer cells had certain histologic invasive characteristics, when cancer was present in more than one quadrant of the breast, and when the patient had a five-year Gail risk of 1.67 percent or more. In addition, women diagnosed when they were over age 50 or who had additional moderate- to high-risk cells in their affected breast were also likely to have abnormal cells in their other breast that could turn into cancer.
SOURCE: CANCER, published online January 26, 2009