More women are choosing double mastectomy even when breast cancer is confined to a single breast

Researchers are reporting a 150 percent increase between 1998 and 2003 in American women opting to have both breasts removed when cancer has been found in only one breast—a procedure called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM). This is the first study to examine these trends on a national level. The authors caution that this aggressive strategy may be unnecessary since most patients will never develop cancer in the second breast, and since the risk of cancer spreading to other parts of the body is often higher than the risk that cancer will be found in the second breast. The study will be published online October 22 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).

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