Word: bedrosian
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Bedrosian's study, however, which involved 107,000 women undergoing mastectomy for breast cancer, most women did not obtain a survival benefit from preventive surgery in the unaffected breast. Only a specific group of patients - women under age 50 who had early-stage cancer (I or II) and tumors that were negative for the estrogen receptor - saw an increase in their chances of surviving to five years. That increase was small, just 4.8%, compared with women who did not have preventive mastectomy. Further, less than 10% of the breast-cancer population fits these criteria...
...hope this study helps women make a better decision," says Bedrosian. "For the majority of women in the study, we can't document a survival benefit for you. So our results provide some reassurance that perhaps a [preventive] mastectomy is not necessary, perhaps overly aggressive and perhaps a bit too much...
...while the benefit may seem slight, Bedrosian notes that in cancer terms, any percentage boost in survival is meaningful, particularly to patients. And when women are facing the decision to lose a healthy breast, every piece of information counts. (See more about health care...
...Anderson study highlights the combined effect of three major factors in improving breast-cancer survival: age, type of tumor and stage of cancer. Taken together, this suite of criteria makes sense, says Bedrosian. Women with estrogen-positive cancers can be treated with hormone-therapy drugs like tamoxifen or, if they are postmenopausal, the new aromatase inhibitors, which block the production of cancer-enhancing estrogen in the body. Women whose tumors lack the estrogen receptor, however, cannot take advantage of these drugs, since their cancers are not as dependent on estrogen for fuel. As a result, they have a lower survival...
Aware of these concerns, Bedrosian says her team was rigorous in its statistical analysis and feels confident enough in the numbers to begin using the information to help patients decide whether a preventive mastectomy is right for them. "We looked at this in multiple different ways, and we got the same answer every time. And the results make good clinical sense. That adds another level of reassurance," she says. "Our hope is that when women hear the numbers, they will take a second look and decide not to go forward with a preventive mastectomy [in their healthy breast...