Research shows patients with early breast cancer may have better chance of survival with lumpectomy plus radiation vs mastectomy
Over the past 10 years, women have increasingly been choosing to treat their breast cancer with mastectomy instead of lumpectomy combined with radiation, even for very small cancers.
In a study published early online in Cancer, Shelley Hwang MD, MPH, of the Duke Cancer Institute, and her colleagues examined whether some populations of women do experience better outcomes after mastectomy compared with lumpectomy and radiation.
The investigators examined 112,154 medical cases including all women who were diagnosed in the state of California with stage I or II breast cancer between 1990 and 2004 and who were treated with either mastectomy or lumpectomy plus radiation. They looked for patterns across different breast cancer types and among different age groups.
The study results show the efficacy of breast-conserving treatments even among patients with aggressive, early disease. For instance, in the first 3 years following surgery, women who underwent mastectomy had a higher risk of dying of heart disease and other diseases than women who underwent lumpectomy. Over the entire study period and among all age groups and cancer types, women were more likely to survive breast cancer after undergoing lumpectomy plus radiation than mastectomy. This benefit was seen most in women 50 years of age or older with hormone-sensitive breast cancer, who had a 14% decreased risk of dying of breast cancer during the study compared with those women who underwent mastectomy.
Although the current perception among many women is that outcomes may be better with mastectomy than with lumpectomy, Hwang says, “The findings in this study should reassure women that among all age groups and tumor types, lumpectomy continues to be an excellent choice for women with small early breast cancers.”
Source: Wiley.