Contralateral prophylactic mastectomy rate more than doubled recently

Between 1998 and 2003, rates of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy have more than doubled among breast cancer patients in the United States, according to the results of a study published online Oct. 22 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Todd M. Tuttle, MD, of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues used the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to review 1998–2003 treatment data on 152,755 patients, including 4,969 patients who opted for contralateral prophylactic mastectomy.

The researchers found that the rates of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy were 3.3% for all surgically treated patients and 7.7% for mastectomy patients. Between 1998 and 2003, they found that the overall rate increased from 1.8% to 4.5%, and from 4.2% to 11% in mastectomy patients. They observed the highest rates in younger patients, non-Hispanic whites, those with lobular histology, and those with a previous cancer diagnosis.

Tuttle TM, Habermann EB, Grund EH, et al. Increasing use of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy for breast cancer patients: a trend toward more aggressive surgical treatment. J Clin Oncol. Published online ahead of print Oct 22 2007, at http:// http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/abstract/JCO.2007.12.3141v1/.