Not all breast cancer patients need preventive mastectomy

Dallas, Texas, January 27: Women, who have cancerdefine in one breast, are increasingly taking to the practice of getting the other one surgically removed, owing to the fear of developing another tumor in that.

The risk of developing a tumor in the other breast is undoubtedly higher for women who have already suffered it in one, but researchers assert it is not rigid situation. "Not every woman who has breast cancerdefine will get another breast cancer in the opposite breast," said researcher Kelly Hunt, M.D., a professor of surgical oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

On studying 542 women who had breast cancer and had underwent mastectomy to remove both their breasts after discovering cancer in one, U.S. researchers found that almost 95 percent did not have any tumor in the second breast.

This procedure of removing a normal breast as a precautionary measure is called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy.

Hunt and his colleagues further studied another 1,574 women who only got their cancerous breast removed but did not opt for a preventive mastectomy in their second breast. Over the next four years or so, only 2.4 percent of them were found to have developed cancer in their remaining breast.

Breast cancer is multifactorial but the researchers noted three factors, which could contribute to the development of cancer in the second breast:

• having multiple tumors in the same breast when the cancer is first diagnosed

• having invasive lobular breast cancer, which begins in the milk-producing glands and then invades surrounding tissues

• having a high score in the so-called Gail model that calculates breast cancer risk

The contralateral prophylactic mastectomy "may be a rational choice" for women who have the above three factors, said the researchers.

"We're learning more and more that all breast cancers are not the same and they really shouldn't all be treated the same," said Hunt. "We have general guidelines that really help to make sure women get the appropriate treatment, but each individual patient has unique factors and features ... that are important to consider."