EFN

According to a new study on how many American women are undergoing prophylactic mastectomy, a growing number of women are deciding to remove a healthy breast after being diagnosed with breast cancer. The problem is there is little data available on the prevalence of prophylactic mastectomies for preventing breast cancer among high-risk women or on the prevalence of the operation to stop tumors in the healthy breast among women whose cancer is limited to one breast.

“Although the total number of prophylactic mastectomies performed per year was small, it appears that the use of the surgery is increasing,” said Stephen Edge, the lead researcher on the study.

A large number of women who have a family history of the disease choose to be on the safe side and have the operation, and according to Edge, this is a practice that does not necessarily benefit them.

The research based on data from New York finds the surgical removal of both breasts in the absence of a cancer diagnosis is rare. However, more women are getting mastectomies of the noncancerous breast after surgery to remove the cancerous one, despite questions over the benefits of the approach. The rate of women who underwent the procedure without having any breast cancer at all only rose slightly during this period.

From 1995 to 2005, the prevalence of preventive mastectomy among women with a history of cancer in one breast more than doubled. Those with no personal history of breast cancer who had both breasts removed also increased, but slightly.