The Alarming Increase In Twin Mastectomies
John F. Montalvo, Jr. ND, DNM, MH Printable version Key concepts: NewsTarget) A recent study that was released in October alongside the Journal of Clinical Oncology stated that there was a 150% increase in the number of Double Mastectomies between the oldness 1998 to 2003.
In an age where medical body of laws is looking else in relation to bust conservation.
There is a part of the populace that is electing to not only amputate the cancerous bosom but further the healthy breast.
Now let me sling absent some statistics that were used by this study. They identified 152,755 women with stage I, II, or III cancer - of that number, 4,969 patients chose contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (meaning that these women chose to amputate their in good breast along with the cancerous breast).
The rate was 3.3% for all surgically treated women; 7.7% for patients undergoing mastectomy. The overall rate was a significant increase from 1.8% in 1998 to 4.5% in 2003.
And during the same margin of 1998 to 2003, the contralateral prophylactic mastectomy rate for patients undergoing mastectomy significantly increased from 4.2% in 1998 to 11.0% in 2003. What was also surprising was that younger women were making this decision and women who had stage one cancer were making the end far more frequently than those in advance stages.
The women who were mostly white, with a preceding cancer diagnosis, were more likely to opt championing a contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, the study found, as were women who had lobular histology, meaning the cancer started in the lobules or milk-making glands of the breast. The study's lead author, Dr. Todd M.
Tuttle, chief of surgical oncology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, stated in a report that was published by the Associated Force and in USA Today on October 23, 2007:
I'm afraid that women believe having their opposite chest removed is somehow wealthy to improve their breast cancer survival.
In fact, it probably testament not perturb their survival." Tuttle went on to explain, "The primary tumor already may have sent outside seeds that have spread to key organs."
1) The Other Off-putting Trend The other upsetting trend was young women who had genetic testing representing the mutation of gene BRCA 1 or BRCA 2.
I read in a New York Times article published on September 16, 2007 of a thirty-three year old woman agonizing over if she should have a banal mastectomy because she was found with the mutated gene, but not yet with cancer. Her 63 year-old mom was a breast cancer survivor.
Yet, a Cochrane Review published in 2004 on women with BRCA changing concluded: By only estimate, most of the women deemed high risk by kindred history (but not necessarily BRCA 1 or 2 altering carriers) who underwent these procedures would not bear died from breast cancer, even without prophylactic surgery..
Of the psychosocial outcomes measured, target image and feelings of femininity were the most adversely affected." 2) What is disturbing about this tendency seems like the more "enlightened" the medical community is, the further we are successful back to the dark ages.
Breast cancer is the most studied affliction in the world. Back in the 1950's and 60's, radical mastectomies (where both breasts were removed with part of the chest wall) were the trend.
And then in the closest part of the 20th Century, we construct elsewhere that that type of treatment was not increasing the life span of a woman any also than partial emigration or lumpectomy.