More and more women who have been diagnosed with cancer in one breast are choosing to have a double mastectomy, even though statistically the risk of cancer developing in the second breast is less than 1 percent.
This trend was found by a University of Minnesota team in the first study of double-mastectomy use at a national level. The researchers found that from 1998 to 2003 double mastectomies increased from 4.2 percent to 11 percent. Women younger than 40 were much more likely to choose the more aggressive approach.
