Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: Bilateral mastectomy is on the increase, as is concern about its use. Equivalent survival has been demonstrated among early-stage breast cancer patients treated with breast conserving surgery or mastectomy in randomized trials with twenty-years of follow-up data (1, 2). Despite these results, recent national data show increasing use of mastectomy (3, 4), and particularly bilateral mastectomy (BLM) (5-8), among United States (U.S.) breast cancer patients. The rate of uptake of this prophylactic mastectomy has been increasing at the rate of 14.3% per year, and is now the choice of 33% of women under 40.