Mastectomies among younger women with nonmetastatic invasive breast cancer may not always be necessary, according to a new study that shows survival outcomes are similar to those of women who had a lumpectomy.
The results come as an increasing number of women under 40 choose mastectomy. "A lot of times, there's this assumption that removal of the entire breast is going to prevent cancer from returning in that breast. That makes complete sense, it's intuitive, so I think a lot of patients are surprised to find that less extensive surgery provides the same overall survival as a really extensive surgery," said Christine Pestana, MD, a fellow in breast surgical oncology with the Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute, Charlotte, N.C. Pestana presented the study at the annual meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons earlier this year.
In fact, it has been well-demonstrated among women over age 50 with breast cancer that lumpectomy and mastectomy result in similar outcomes, but efforts to show similar efficacy by analyzing data from randomized trials have been limited by small numbers of women under 40, said the study's lead author Lejla Hadzikadic-Gusic, MDwho is codirector of the Sandra Levine Young Women's Breast Cancer Program at Atrium Health.
