Breast News Magazine

More and more women, and many of them considerably younger women for having breast cancer, are opting to get both of their breasts totally removed after they are diagnosed with breast cancer in hopes of totally eliminating any recurrence of the disease in their other, disease free breast. 

Many times, physicians say they feel the second breast removal may not necessarily improve these women’s odds of survival, especially since it is cancer free, however if the patient wants it and would feel better doing it, or has a long history of breast cancer running in the female side of their family, then they will get what they want. 

There was actually a study conducted recently by a doctor who noticed that nearly double his patients were opting for the double mastectomies in the last few years, and wanted to see first, why they were increasingly taking this rather radical option over a simple lumpectomy or just the removal of the one cancerous breast, and second, if it really had any bearing on whether the cancer was more or less likely to return. 

While the results for the latter could hardly be conclusive with such a short time frame for the research study, he did conclude that more women were opting for the removal of both breasts because they felt that they were doing a sort of “catch all” treatment, and that they were just doing what they felt was probably inevitable - the removal of both of their breasts, up front instead of having to go through the pain and emotional trauma of removing the second breast later on down the line. 

I can definitely see the reasons behind getting both breasts removed right up front, and can certainly understand what drives it - the fact that it’s a very scary thing and they would rather just literally cut it all out even if it’s not cancerous yet, and also because there are much better and much less painful and costly reconstructive procedures that can be done to rebuild breasts nowadays. 

I received the following information from a gentleman who had some interesting statistics on the acceptability of breast augmentation surgery today, and how it is still the most commonly performed elective surgery here in the US. 

I thought you might be able to use this: a new survey done by the National Women’s Health Resource Center called Life Makeover Secrets of the Modern Woman provides some interesting insight into how perceptions among women are changing about plastic surgery, specifically breast augmentation.

The survey results show that:

–More than half of women (59 percent) surveyed felt motivated to make over their lives after experiencing a life-changing event, such as major weight change (62 percent), childbirth (59 percent) or divorce/separation/end of a romantic relationship (55 percent)    

–The majority of women (95 percent) who wanted to make a change actually did so in at least one area of their lives: health or fitness (57 percent) and physical appearance (42 percent)

–Of those women motivated to improve their appearance, nearly half (45 percent) said they would consider plastic surgery to do so.

–Breasts are among the top five body parts women would change; more than half (53 percent) say they are more accepting of breast augmentation than they used to be.

I can get you more information on these findings, including a comprehensive fact sheet and some background. You can also see the results here:

www.healthywomen.org/breastsurgery

The site can also help find a certified surgeon to those interested. Thanks so much for your time. Let me know if you have any questions.

Taxol, one of the most popular chemotherapy drugs used for breast cancer in women, has been found not to be effective as a cancer fighter and treatment in the most common forms of breast cancer, or at least not nearly as effective as it was once thought against breast cancer. 

The numbers of women who are receiving this form of chemotherapy right now here in the US, which accounts for almost half of the total number of patients with breast cancer currently, could potentially be pulled off this chemotherapy drug if supporting evidence continues to the point that it is not found to be useful in treatment at all, and they could escape the terrible side effects of this drug since it may not even be helping them in the first place.

Scary stuff, huh?  The catch 22 here is of course this preliminary data, which must be enough to get researchers to do a second round of investigation to see if the first round of results is indeed correct.  Plus, there is quite a bit at stake here, since they don’t want to take patients off Taxol before they have 100% conclusive evidence that it is not really doing them any good.  They also do not want patients to be on the drug which can cause bad side effects if they aren’t gaining any benefit from it. 

Researchers are saying that although this drug has been available well over a decade, this new research was not available to them due to the onset of genetic testing lately and the advances in science that allowed them to do such research to determine whether it was effective. 

Researchers are also saying that this and other significant findings in the world of breast cancer research are all pointing to the fact that breast cancer is no longer a disease that can be treated the same in every woman, but rather it will be a unique approach for every patient’s treatment, most likely dependant on the type of cancer and some sort of genetic testing as well.  While this may seem like disappointing news, it’s actually a sign that breast cancer research is advancing, and that’s always good news.   

This question came from a person who wondered if they could just purchase a bunch of the herbs traditionally used in herbal breast enhancement products as a sort of “do it yourself” herbal breast enhancement deal. 

Question :