A new study shows similar rates of death from breast cancer when comparing 460 women who had a mastectomy with 745 women who chose surveillance (screening). For women choosing surveillance, these results are reassuring that survival is not likely to be compromised. Keep in mind, the goal of surveillance is to detect cancer early if it develops (i.e., the goal is early detection of a cancer diagnosis), whereas the goal of a risk-reducing mastectomy is to prevent a cancer diagnosis altogether (i.e., the goal is no cancer diagnosis). Not surprisingly, breast cancer incidence was greatly lowered in the mastectomy group compared to the surveillance group. Specifically, mastectomy lowered breast cancer risk by 94% with a 2% rate of occult cancer after mastectomy.
Gandhi, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2026:JCO2500834. PMID: 41637687.
Article available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41637687/.
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