Getting your player ready...
New research suggests that women with gene mutations that predispose them to breast cancer might not pay a huge price in survival if they choose to preserve their breast instead of having it removed.
In a small study that observed women with BRCA gene mutations and different types of cancer and treatments, patients had two to four times greater risk of a cancer recurrence if they had only the cancerous lump removed instead of the whole breast. However, their survival rates after 15 years appeared roughly similar, although this type of study cannot prove one treatment is as good as another.
Results were presented Friday at a breast-cancer conference in Barcelona, Spain.
