The Terrible Truth About Double Mastectomies
There’s a new fad in the medical community that involves cutting off perfectly healthy breasts.
The idea is that if you don’t have breasts, you can’t get breast cancer.
Now, I recognize that this is a very personal decision that only a woman can make—and, of course, every individual case is different.
But having said that… I think this whole practice is barbaric.
If you’ve been led to believe that getting a preventive mastectomy will save your life, then you’ll be in for a shock over the results of a recent study.
As soon as a woman gets diagnosed with breast cancer, one thought pervades: survival.
Some doctors will try to convince women to get a double mastectomy—even when the cancer is only in one breast—in order to prevent the cancer from spreading to the other breast.
But does this really impact survival?
To find out, researchers looked at data from over 600,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer from 2000 to 2019.
Whether the women had a lumpectomy or a mastectomy, there was a seven percent chance of developing cancer in the other breast.
Here’s how the survival rates broke down:
- Lumpectomy = 8.5 percent died from breast cancer
- Mastectomy = 9 percent died from breast cancer
- Double mastectomy = 8.5 percent died from breast cancer.
In other words, getting a preventive double mastectomy did NOT increase survival odds.
The researchers concluded that cutting off the second breast was an effective way to not get cancer in that breast, but not an effective way to reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer.
Apparently, this wasn’t news to breast surgical oncologists, many of whom commented something to the effect of “We’ve known this for years.”
Now, it’s important to note that these findings don’t apply to women who have the BRCA gene mutation, which predisposes a woman to breast cancer.
But most women don’t have this gene mutation.
As I said before, this is a very personal decision that each woman must make for herself.
But I want to do what I can to help all women make an informed decision.
The rest is up to you.
P.S. “Secret Move” SLASHES breast cancer risk.
SOURCE:
Giannakeas V, Lim DW, Narod SA. Bilateral Mastectomy and Breast Cancer Mortality. JAMA Oncol. 2024;10(9):1228–1236. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2024.2212
