The director of the NIH, Francis Collins, MD, this morning weighed in on a topic that has garnered much attention lately: the type of surgery that women diagnosed with breast cancer choose. The post, found at the NIH Director's blog, describes a recent study by Stanford researchers published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association that examined survival rates after three different types of breast cancer surgery for women diagnosed with cancer in one breast: a lumpectomy (removal of the just the affected tissue, usually followed by radiation therapy), a single mastectomy (removal of the whole affected breast), and double mastectomy (removal of the unaffected breast along with the affected one.)
In a previous post we wrote in detail about the study and the finding that the number of double mastectomies in California have increased dramatically. However, except for women with mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, the procedure does not appear to improve survival rates for women who undergo the surgery compared with women who choose other types of breast surgery. Collins notes:
It isn't clear exactly what prompted this upsurge in double mastectomy, which is more expensive, risky, and prone to complications than other two surgical approaches. But [researchers] Kurian and Gomez suggest that when faced with a potentially life-threatening diagnosis of cancer in one breast--and fears about possibly developing cancer in the other--women may assume that the most aggressive surgery is the best. The researchers also said it's also possible that new plastic surgery techniques that achieve breast symmetry through bilateral reconstruction may make double mastectomy more appealing to some women.
Despite its recent upsurge in popularity, the study found double mastectomy conferred no survival advantage over the less aggressive approach of lumpectomy followed by radiation.
Collins also points out that the slightly worse survival rates of women who undergo single mastectomies probably reflect the fact that poorer women were more likely to have this surgery and is evidence of yet another health disparity linked to economic status.
Previously: Breast cancer patients are getting more bilateral mastectomies - but not any survival benefit
