Breast Cancer Development after Prophylactic Subcutaneous Mastectomy: A Case Report

Following prophylactic mastectomy (aka bilateral risk-reducing mastectomy), the incidence of breast carcinoma is presumably not more than 2% [1]. The studies by Pennisi and Capozzi [2] and Woods [3], among several others, reported that a few out of more than 1,000 patients in their studies (prophylactic subcutaneous mastectomy) developed breast cancer after years of follow-up (incidence rate 0.6%). Yet, nipple sparing mastectomy raises some major concerns one of which is that when it is used for prophylaxis, it poses persistent risk of developing breast cancer. Besides, there is lots of controversy in terms of oncological perspective regarding the safety of such procedures [4,5]. It has been reported that prophylactic bilateral mastectomy decreases risk of breast cancer by more than 80% [6]. Vulnerability to cancer-specific worry is often found with women who have consistently estimated too highly about their risk of breast cancer [7]. This situation might push such women to take unusual measures against breast cancer including having a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy. Breast cancer risk assessment is a method to discover the quantity of lifetime probability of a certain woman’s developing breast cancer. For the time being, risk assessment relies on epidemiologic observations which are derived from defined study populations rather than for individuals.