Research News
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Fear Pushes Many Women to Choose Double Mastectomy
Fear, not actual risk, drives many women to have double mastectomy.
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Survey Says Women Want to See Reconstruction Results Before Breast Cancer Surgery
Survey results reveal that 89% of U.S. women diagnosed with breast cancer want to see what reconstruction results would look like before starting treatment.
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Docs Need to Consider Quality of Life When Assessing Lymphedema
A study strongly suggests that considering a person's quality of life as well as reducing swelling is very important to managing lymphedema.
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Survey: Women Happy with Prophylactic Mastectomy Choice 20 Years Later
Two surveys show that about 90% of women who decide to have contralateral prophylactic mastectomy are satisfied with their decision and would make the same decision again.
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Prophylactic Surgery Reduces Risk for Women with Abnormal Breast Cancer Genes
Women with an abnormal breast cancer gene who had prophylactic surgery lowered their risk of both ovarian and breast cancer.
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Research on Treatment Options for Diagnosed Women with Abnormal Breast Cancer Genes
A new study found that women with an abnormal breast cancer gene had the same survival rates whether they had mastectomy or lumpectomy plus radiation. Still, women who had lumpectomy plus radiation were between 4 and 5 times more likely to develop another breast cancer in the same breast compared to women who had mastectomy, unless lumpectomy plus radiation was followed by chemotherapy.
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Some Women Who Choose Contralateral Mastectomy Overestimate Risk
A very small study suggests that women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in one breast who are considering removing the opposite healthy breast overestimated their risk of developing breast cancer in the healthy breast. Once the women took time to carefully consider their actual risk of developing a new breast cancer, they usually decided against removing the healthy breast.
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Can Removing Other, Healthy Breast Improve Survival?
A large study found that women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer who chose to have the opposite healthy breast removed were 16% less likely to die from breast cancer in the 4 years after diagnosis than women who didn't have the healthy breast removed, but it's unclear if removing the healthy breast is the reason for the better survival.
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Number of Women Choosing Protective Mastectomy Increases
An increasing number of women are making the decision to have prophylactic mastectomy to reduce the risk of breast cancer.
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Number of Women Having Double Mastectomy After DCIS Diagnosis Triples
The number of women who decided to have both breasts removed after being diagnosed with DCIS more than tripled between 1998 and 2005, but it's unclear why this increase is happening.
