Patients choosing double mastectomy don't have better survival rates: study

The number of women choosing to undergo a double mastectomy after a breast cancer diagnosis is on the rise, new research reveals. But a second study also finds that women who choose to have both breasts removed survive about as long as patients who choose less-invasive lumpectomy surgery instead. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Cancer Prevention Institute of California looked at nearly 190,000 California patients diagnosed with cancer in one breast between 1998 and 2011 to see which treatment options they chose and how they fared. The difference in the long-term survival rates between the women who underwent the double mastectomies and those who received a lumpectomy followed by radiation treatment was "not statistically significant," the study found. Read more here.