Double Mastectomy: Most Breast Cancer Patients Don't Need It, So Non-Cancer Patients Certainly Don't

Following a genetic marker for breast cancer, the actress Angelina Jolie had a preventative double mastectomy. Cancer experts were horrified - and with good reason. About 70 percent of women who have both breasts removed following a breast cancer diagnosis do so against doctor recommendations, so healthy women certainly should not.  And they certainly should not take medical advice from a women who wrote her first husband's name in her blood on their wedding day. Yet she is not alone. Recent studies have shown an increase in women with breast cancer choosing this more aggressive surgery, called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, which raises the question of potential over-treatment among these patients. read more

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