Posted on 09/03/2014 1:15:41 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Women with breast cancer do not increase their survival chances by having a double mastectomy, researchers claim.
They found women who only had lumps taken out followed by radiotherapy lived just as long as those who had both breasts removed.
Researchers also point out that double mastectomies are major operations that take two months to recover from.
By comparison, women who have lumpectomies—where only the tumor and nearby tissue are removed—usually get back to their daily routines within a few days.
Earlier this year surgeons reported a surge in British women opting to have double mastectomies after Angelina Jolie decided to have the procedure to prevent the illness. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The body has adjusted to pumping blood, lymph, etc through them and has to readjust. That's not impossible and some people do better (much better) than others. But it is not some triviality.
Her fear was not irrational. Her situation is also very different than the vast majority of women as she tested positive for a BRCA genetic defect.
Her chances of breast cancer were well over 50%. That is more than twice the female population as a whole. Her risk of ovarian cancer is also very high.
BRCA defects are found in only a small percentage of the poplulation.
I’s still against it
Oh, okay. I see your point!
Partially true. Better yet are lifestyle changes to prevent the occurrence of cancer. Everyone aleady has cancerous cells, but not everyone has an environment in their body that allows its growth. What people eat and what they don't eat makes a huge difference, as does exercise, environmental toxins, and spiritual and mental health. For example, green tea, berries, tumeric, and eliminating white sugar and processed foods will help allow the natural defenses of the body to flourish.
When cancer gets aggressive due to previous poor lifestyle choices and habits, then aggressive treatment or faith in God is the only hope.
The book ”Anti-Cancer”, by a medical doctor who got brain cancer and put it in remission, gives scientific explanations of why dietary changes and exercise work.
In 2009 I was diagnosed with Her2 breast cancer and they did a lumpectomy and took out all my lymph nodes under my arm on that side. That breast is about half the size of the other one now. They did talk about a mastectomy and I said fine, just get rid of it. They decided the lumpectomy was enough.
I actually had someone ask me if the new size of my breast bothers me. I laughed and said nope, I’m still alive.
So far cancer free!!
FYI: Here's a link to the original article in the Journal of the American Medical Association: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1900491
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She carries a BRCA genetic mutation, which can lead to both breast and ovarian cancers. I tested BRCA positive, too, but I didn't find out until after I'd been diagnosed with cancer.
For the record, the article and its headline are not clear enough. At the end of the article, though, there's this line: ‘Double mastectomies are not routinely offered to women with breast cancer in the UK unless they have a family history of the disease or a high risk of recurrence, as outside of these groups there is no evidence to suggest this would be of benefit.' IOW, within those particular groups, there is a benefit.
To be honest, it's been known for years that, statistically, there's no difference in survival rates for lumpectomy with radiation vs. mastectomy... unless the woman isn't eligible for lumpectomy because the cancer is multifocal, for example. For years now, surgeons have been routinely advising patients to have lumpectomies, except when the patient is BRCA-positive (like Jolie) or the cancer is multifocal, etc.
Sadly, as usual, the media gets it wrong. They always do. Here's a link to the original article: Journal of the AMA.
Notice that there are other details, just in the summary alone, that the press isn't covering. See my two posts above for more information, too: It's been known for many years that lumpectomy with radiation has the same results as mastectomy IF the patient is eligible for a lumpectomy. Not all patients are. Yet, because the media only gives readers half the story, many people believe every woman is eligible for the less intrusive surgery.
During treatment, I used to sit next to a woman with HER2+ BC. I often wonder how she’s doing now. I hope she’s faring as well as you are! Thanks for sharing your story. :-)
I wish there were a Like button here. I would’ve hit “Like” for all your posts on this thread. LOL
Whose position in life is it to say what somebody does with their glad bags? Nobody seems to have a whole lot of heartburn if the pump them up.
That does not make sense, with all due respect. Ever heard the saying “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”? I would not have an orchiectomy if some doctor told me I had some alleged “genetic predisposition” to testicular cancer and I did not have the disease, that’s for sure.
If you did, I doubt many women would hit the Internet to complain.
As you get older, you’d be amazed what you can learn to live without, when the alternative is possibly not living. I now understand what Granny meant when she told me “Gettin’ old ain’t for sissies.”
Yes, you are correct on the fixing, but what was broken when they “fixed” their vanity by having the new and improved larger ones? You have swerved from the point of the “study” by trying to make your own point about my analogy.
The bottom line for AJ is that one just cannot fix stupid. The only reason we know anything about it and quite possibly because she did what she did was from a long life being raised as a bubble baby within the Hollyweird echo chamber that they them selves are just so much smarter than anyone else. All because they have been so many people in their bubble lives that they have gotten to the point that they have no friggin idea who they really are.
In the case of my wife and her bought with breast cancer, I will stand by her decision to have a double while her list of friends with recurrence after lumpectomy continues to grow.
I will take my wife’s decision which was based on the logic and reality of her situation and don’t really give a crap about so-called celebrities and their so-called intellectual mutterings.
Surgery for genuine problems I am absolutely not opposed to, but that for imagined future problems based on faithless fear and allegations of “genetic predisposition” that may turn out to be debunked later I am wary of. Since the article did focus on the daughter of Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, that was my focus here; the woman does not know what she could die from in spite of her family history, and she put her faith in unsure science rather than the higher power. I’m not considering anything beyond that.
I was not trying to go after your wife, for the record. Her infirmity was/is absolutely genuine.
AJ is the only case I was concerned with, since the article (such as it is) brought her up.
No offense taken at all. I was just making he point that my wife is so far grounded in reality that she makes the much lauded farce of AJ and her merry band of sycophants struggle to collectively match the brain power of an amoeba.
Maybe you missed the point that celebrities and what they do matter not at all to me and to those who they do, they just might be a redneck. The implication was in the feign of a new line for a Jeff Foxworthy routine.
I have found the best way to get under a liberal’s or pointy headed intellectual’s skin is to make fun of then and just laugh in their face without even trying to discuss it with them. They are incapable of even wanting to learn the truth much less capable of recognizing it so why bother? Just relegate them to their own reality demise and be glad that you didn’t get any on you.
Jolie was only trying to prevent, not cure. That is different from the thrust of this “study”.
Yes, I agree. Mentioning her was too incidental.
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