Last month, my colleague wrote about breast cancer patients who choose to have their healthy breasts removed as a preventive measure. Liz Szabo at USA Today has now taken a closer look at this issue - outlining the growing number of women who go this route and the various factors driving this trend, including what one advocate calls a lack of options:
...Women can't be blamed for choosing aggressive therapy, given that doctors can't always predict who's at the greatest risk of dying, says Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
"We really haven't made enough progress to give these women enough options," Visco says. "We can say, 'You are probably going to be fine,' but we can't say, 'You are definitely going to be fine.' So this drastic intervention is all we have. And that's pretty sad, after all these years and billions of dollars spent."
The rest of the article is worth reading.
Previously: Researchers unsure why some breast cancer patients choose double mastectomies
