Has the Angelina Effect Caused a Surge in Men Having Mastectomies?

September 3rd, 2015

Awake Goy

Susanne.Posel-Headline.News.Official- men.breast.cancer.mastecotmy.angelina.jolie_occupycorporatism Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Co-Founder, Legacy Bio-Naturals
September 3, 2015

Researchers from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) released a report citing the growing number of men choosing to have double mastectomies, or contralateral prophylactic mastectomies (CPMs), in lieu of coming down with breast cancer.

According to the report, “the rate of male breast cancer patients who choose to have CPM nearly doubled, from 3% to 5.6%, between 2004 and 2011.”

More than 6,332 men participated in this study that was based on assessment data from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR).

Because statistics show that a man who survives breast cancer has a 20 fold increased risk of having the cancer manifest again, a portion of men are opting to have both breasts removed as a precaution.

Jemal claims that his research shows that one contributing factor to this phenomenon is a 10 year campaign in the public to address breast cancer with mastectomies; while other factors include insurance companies now offering coverage for the reconstructive surgery.

The researchers recommended having a double mastectomy to men who are at an elevated risk of breast cancer and encouraged them to “talk to their doctors about the benefits, risks and costs.”

Ahmedim Jemal, vice president of surveillance and health services research at the ACS and co-author of the study, said that his team could not determine “why it’s happening in men”; however the researchers did notice how “sociodemographic factors that have been associated with contralateral prophylactic mastectomy in women are also associated with men.”

Part of this record-breaking industry’s profit surge is due to the Angelina Effect.

This was recorded in a study out of the Odette Cancer Centre (OCC) in Canada who found that due to the Angelina Effect there have been a 90% increase in the number of women referred for breast cancer genetic screening at a large screening facility in Toronto in the six months before and after Jolie’s announcement.”

According to Scarlett Gomez, research scientist with the Cancer Prevention Institute of California (CPIC): “We found no lower death rates among women who had bilateral mastectomy compared to women who had breast-conserving surgery with radiation.”

The researcher revealed a “proportion of women opting for double mastectomy had surged in recent years and wanted to see what effect the more extensive surgery had on survival. The radical surgery is associated with higher costs, longer recovery and greater risk of complications”

Shockingly, the death rates of women who had a double or single mastectomy were ‘similar”; however “the death rate associated with single mastectomy was higher than the other procedures.”

But when it comes to trusting doctors to correctly diagnose cancer, a study published in March of this year showed that there is more inaccuracy surrounding this trend’s ability to prevent breast cancer from spreading.

The researchers at the University of Washington (UW) warned “as many as one of every four breast tissue biopsies tested for cancer may have been incorrectly diagnosed by pathologists taking part in a study to test their skills.”

In fact, 4% of the invasive breast cancer cases were correctly identified and 13% of DCIS cases and 35% of atypia were incorrectly diagnosed.

With pathologists misdiagnosing atypia which is a serious condition in 17% of cases, spotlights how much trouble them medical community may be in as far as properly treating patients regarding cancer probabilities.

While invasive breast cancer was easier to spot for these doctors, “they struggled with spotting whether abnormal cells in a tissue sample might increase a woman’s future cancer risk” and this alone might help explain the treatment being suggested to patients by these inept pathologists.

A shocking 25% of the pathologist participants could not accurately interpret glass slides and this could account for “some of the 1.6 million American women who undergo a breast biopsy each year.”

In fact, with the recent upswing of mastectomies and biopsies, the researchers are concerned that women may be “wrongly” convinced to undergo into unnecessary “surgery or radiation therapy, receive unwarranted MRIs or mammograms, or spend many anxious years fretting that they are at increased risk for cancer when they actually are not.”