33+% of major breast cancer surgeries UNNECESSARY, poorer women higher mistreatment

Unnecessary Breast Cancer Surgeries Throw Women Under the Bus

Posted by Maressa Brown 

on September 21, 2011 at 4:52 PM

Not only are California doctors trying to steer women away from learning potentially life-saving information about their breast health these days, but now comes news some surgeons have been performing unnecessary breast cancer surgeries on lower-income, older, and Hispanic women. What the heck? According to a study published in the Archives of Surgery, more than a third of some 18,000 women who had undergone amastectomy for early-stage breast cancer had had their lymph nodes removed, as well, in a procedure known as axillary lymph node dissection, or ALND.

The thing is ... all of these women had node-negative tumors, meaning the cancer hadn't spread beyond the breast.

http://thestir.cafemom.com/healthy_living/126313/unnecessary_breast_cancer_surgeries_throw