Observation on Bilateral Mastectomy: Resource Evaluation

摘要

This is an observational study of a cohort of patients who had undergone a modified radical mastectomy for primary breast cancer and then underwent a contralateral subcutaneous mastectomy at the time of reconstruction. The comparison of the survival and disease free survival of these patients to individuals who had not undergone contralateral mastectomy and reconstruction shows excellent survival through five years, suggesting a potential survival advantage to those who had elected this procedure. Selection bias and effects of confounding variables may account for some of the apparent survival advantage, although an important observation is that the maximum apparent benefit seen in the contralateral group is observed when the contralateral procedure is performed at shorter intervals from the primary procedure. This observation suggests that comparison to a cohort of patients with similar tumor characteristics in individuals who received tamoxifen should be carried out.