Prophylactic Mastectomy and Its Importance, a Media and Medical Issue.

Breast cancer, being the most common cancer among women, draws attention to an important concept, the concept of “high-risk breast”. The interest for further information on this topic has been increasing, not only among doctors but also among patients. Genetic analysis is the most objective criterion to learn the concrete risk.

The risk of a woman developing breast cancer during her lifetime varies between 10-13%. This alarming percentage rises to 50-80% in women with BRCA positive genes.

Other known factors that increase the risk include: first-degree relatives diagnosed with breast cancer, atypical or hyperplastic lesions in the breast, ductal or lobular carcinoma in situ, microcalcifications in mammography, absence of children, early menarche, and late menopause.

Another factor that should be considered as an indication for prophylactic surgery is the patient's desire. Fear of the disease, frequent checks, and successive biopsies are reasons that push the patient and the doctor to consider the option of surgery.

Another reason that leads to prophylactic intervention in the breast is the presence of the disease in the other breast, a factor that raises the risk of future disease even in the healthy breast.

During prophylactic mastectomy, the skin of the breast and the nipple-areolar complex, or in other words, the breast tip and the colored area around it, are preserved. After the breast tissue is removed, it is replaced by either a prosthesis or tissue taken from another area of the patient's own body. Before the operation, the plastic surgeon makes some calculations and decides on the size of the prosthesis to be placed.

Also, in the preoperative consultation, the patient expresses the desire to have the same breast size, or to slightly increase or decrease it.

The recovery from the operation lasts 3 days to a week, of which the first 3 nights are spent in the hospital. After the second week, light walking and running are allowed, and after the sixth week, going to the gym is permitted. From the third day after the operation, special garments are worn and from the outside, no one can tell that the patient has had both breasts removed.

This operation may be an intervention to reduce cancer risk for oncologists and general surgeons, but for plastic surgeons, there is also the aesthetic aspect of the issue. Advice for removing a healthy breast is quite traumatizing for patients and a non-aesthetic result would significantly increase this trauma.

However, in the vast majority of patients, the breast after the operation looks more beautiful than the preoperative breast and patients express that they are happy not only because they have minimized the risk of cancer but also because they have a more uplifted and youthful breast.

At the American Hospital, we are convinced that prevention is the best cure and that awareness and as detailed information as possible are the strongest weapons in the fight against this aggressive disease. So, learn about your options in detail and keep in mind that decisions about your body can only be made by you.

We wish you beautiful and healthy days.