[Tired of Taxes]

There’s more to the study and the JAMA article. The Daily Mail article is putting out half the story and not making the information clear enough. Plus, there are many, many other factors - such as cancer stage, placement of tumor, number of tumors, pathology, genetics, etc. - that sometimes necessitate a single or double removal. As for finding cancer in 1-3% of the “healthy” tissue removed, the whole point of having prophylactic surgery is to have it removed before cancer develops. So, there shouldn’t be cancer on the healthy side at all.

[palmer]

There are people who adapt well and even gain psychological benefits from what they believe is greatly reducing their cancer risk whether or not it is. Prophylactic medicine is usually based on bad statistics or lawyer medicine, not science. The genetic predisposition is probably overrated as well but I can understand doing amputation for that reason. It is a very individual decision based on the objective factors you mentioned but subjective factors for better or for worse.

So, there shouldn’t be cancer on the healthy side at all.

There's always abnormal cell growth somewhere. They will count DCIS and cysts and other abnormalities that isn't really cancer and does not "turn into" cancer.