Prospective Study of Psychosocial Outcomes of Having Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy Among Women With Nonhereditary Breast Cancer

Purpose The incidence of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) has continued to increase. We prospectively examined psychosocial outcomes before and up to 18 months after surgery in women who did or did not have CPM. Methods Women with unilateral, nonhereditary breast cancer completed questionnaires before and 1, 6, 12, and 18 months after surgery. Primary psychosocial measures were cancer worry and cancer-specific distress. Secondary measures were body image, quality of life (QOL), decisional satisfaction, and decisional regret. Results A total of 288 women (mean age, 56 years; 58% non-Hispanic white) provided questionnaire data, of whom 50 underwent CPM. Before surgery, women who subsequently received CPM had higher cancer distress ( P = .04), cancer worry ( P < .001), and body image concerns ( P < .001) than women who did not have CPM. In a multivariable repeated measures model adjusted for time, age, race/ethnicity, and stage, CPM was associated with more body image distress ( P < .001) and poorer QOL ( P = .02). There was a significant interaction between time point and CPM group for cancer worry ( P < .001), suggesting that CPM patients had higher presurgery cancer worry, but their postsurgery worry decreased over time and was similar to the worry of patients who did not have CPM. QOL was similar between CPM groups before surgery but declined 1 month after surgery and remained lower than patients who did not have CPM after surgery ( P = .05). Conclusion These results may facilitate informed discussions between women and their physicians regarding CPM. Fear and worry may be foremost concerns at the time surgical decisions are made, when women may not anticipate the adverse future effect of CPM on body image and QOL.