Who should have both breasts removed when cancer is found in one? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Many women who had both breasts removed when cancer was found in one really didn’t experience any benefit from doing so, with similar rates of recurrence and death to women who chose more conservative treatment, a recent study finds. Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer director William Nelson says for some women it remains a viable strategy.

 Nelson: What it means for certain women, if they're younger in age, if their breast cancer risk is significant, prophylactic mastectomy will definitely reduce the chance that breast cancer can appear in the contralateral breast. This might be something one considers if you have a BR CA mutation. This discussion that the primary cancer that's diagnosed as the one to make sure that you treat adequately, with the appropriate local therapy, lumpectomy and radiation or mastectomy, the appropriate additional therapy tamoxifen or chemotherapy or HER2 targeted therapy, that's incredibly important.   :35

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.