Surgery

Surgery to remove the healthy ovaries and fallopian tubes reduces the risk of breast cancer in women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation in the first 5 years after surgery. The age at which a woman has the surgery seems to affect risk reduction more in women with a BRCA1 mutation than in women with a BRCA2 mutation.

Black women who are diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer are 28% more likely to die from the disease than white women with the same diagnosis.

A study suggests Black women are about 3.5 times more likely to develop lymphedema than white women.

The American Cancer Society and the American Society of Clinical Oncology have developed new guidelines on breast cancer survivorship care.

A study suggests lifestyle changes aimed at getting to and maintaining a healthy weight as well as promoting the flow of lymph fluid can help reduce lymphedema risk in women who've been treated for breast cancer.

A study has found that women diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer who are treated with chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation have better survival rates than women who don't receive all three treatments.

While most women having breast cancer surgery won't develop an infection, research shows that infections after breast surgery happen more often than expected.

Many women overestimate the risk of DCIS coming back.

Women who had lumpectomy to treat an initial breast cancer and then had lumpectomy again to treat breast cancer that came back in the same breast had lower survival rates in the 10 years after the second surgery compared to women who had lumpectomy as the first surgery and then mastectomy as the second surgery.

In a small study, internal radiation after lumpectomy didn't cause the capsules of existing breast implants to contract, leading to good cosmetic results.

Research strongly suggests that occult metastases in the sentinel lymph node of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer don't affect survival.

A study found that radiation therapy given after DCIS is removed by lumpectomy reduces the risk that the DCIS will come back.

For women diagnosed with DCIS considered to have a low risk of recurrence treated with lumpectomy alone, the risk of DCIS recurrence or developing invasive disease in the same breast increased through 12 years of follow-up and didn't level off.

A very small study suggests that more than half of women who had mastectomy made a reconstruction decision that didn't align with their goals and preferences.

Older and younger women benefit equally from breast reconstruction; age shouldn't disqualify a woman from having reconstruction.

A Dutch study estimates that for every 7,000 women who get breast implants, one woman will develop anaplastic large-cell lymphoma in the breast by age 75.

A study suggests that more women are choosing to have prophylactic mastectomy because of media coverage of celebrities with breast cancer.

Yale University researchers found that women with larger breast cancers who had chemotherapy before surgery were more likely to have lumpectomy than mastectomy.

A study that reviewed published research on lymphedema suggests that full-body exercise and complete decongestive therapy are the best ways to minimize lymphedema symptoms and maintain good quality of life.

Second opinions can help ensure that women get the best care possible for breast cancer.

New research suggests that having mammograms twice per year after lumpectomy finds a cancer recurrence (or a new cancer) earlier than only one mammogram per year after surgery.

A study has found that young women who wait longer than 6 weeks to have breast cancer surgery have worse survival than young women who have surgery earlier.

U.S. legislators are considering two bills -- one on minimum hospital stays after breast cancer surgery and one on federal funding for environmental links to breast cancer -- that may have a big effect on women diagnosed with the disease.

A small study has found that most younger women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer who decide to have the other healthy breast removed choose the surgery because they want to reduce their risk of breast cancer developing in the other breast and improve their survival, even though most of them know that removing the other healthy breast doesn't really improve survival rates in women without an abnormal breast cancer gene.