Breast cancer is a cancer that appears in breast tissue. Surgery is usually the recommended procedure in this case. But you can consider preventive breast cancer surgery, in cases where there is a strong possibility for you to have one in the future, due to gene predisposition, or other causes. These genes of breast cancer are called abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene. It is hereditary, and if you have one, you have a lot of chance to have breast cancer in the future.
If this is the case, you can choose to surgically remove your one or both breasts, or your fallopian tubes and/or ovaries. This preventive surgical procedure lowers significantly the amount of hormones called estrogens in your body, which can stimulate the development of hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer, thus diminishing risk of you having a cancer in these areas of your body.
Protective (prophylactic mastectomy) breast cancer surgery can significantly reduce your risk of getting this disease, especially if you already have your children. It these cases of surgery, nearly all of the soft breast tissue are removed, leaving only small amount of breast cells behind, which are capable to develop a cancer.
This can also apply to ovaries as well. The protective or preventive surgery of removing the ovaries and also fallopian tubes is called oophorectomy. This is done to make sure that no ovarian-like tissue is left in your body, which can be potentially dangerous in the process of getting a cancer there.
If you consider having both of these surgical procedures, just in case to be sure, and having your protection both ways, it is not recommended by doctors. They consider these double procedures very aggressive. These kinds of decisions must be made on a case per case basis. Your case will be carefully examined and depending of your predisposition, or combination of dangerous genes you have, you will have a doctor’s opinion about that.
These protective surgical procedures are irreversible and permanent. That is why decisions about these protective surgical procedures are not easy. Especially because they can not guarantee you that once you have them, you are risk-free. It is almost impossible for any surgery to remove all and last cells of your ovarian or breast tissue, and these remaining cells may still develop cancer. But you will have approximately 80-90% chance of not getting a cancer. Also, you may adapt your time table for both of these surgeries, meaning you can have one now, and the other later.
This means that you must have on your mind other aspects of your life, not just medical. Removing your breasts may have physiological impacts on you and your self esteem. You should not be making this kind of decisions in a hurry, and you must carefully examine every aspect of your decision.
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