Women who have prophylactic mastectomy overstate risk of cancer

Women who undergo prophylactic bilateral mastectomy have an exaggerated perception of their risk of breast cancer before the surgery, concludes a Canadian study. Before deciding on the procedure women should be strongly encouraged to seek genetic counselling and genetic testing, it recommends (Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2002;94:1564-9)

The study, which involved 75 women in Ontario who had had the operation between 1991 and 2000, found that most of them overestimated their risk of developing breast cancer by more than 90% compared with computer generated risks based on epidemiological observations.

University of …