Women Opting for Mastectomies in Ever-Greater Numbers, Doctors Say

Online, January 28, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Women's attitudes toward mastectomies are changing quickly. As Tara Parker-Pope reported in The New York Times on January 21, a new generation of women want doctors to take a more aggressive approach following a breast cancer diagnosis, and more are asking that even healthy breasts be removed to ward off cancer before it strikes. In the Times article, researchers estimate that as many as 15 percent of U.S. women with breast cancer-30,000 a year-opt to have both breasts removed, up from less than three percent in the late 1990s.

At least one company has looked at this trend, which has been dubbed "prophylactic mastectomy," and is taking steps that might someday curb it. Atossa Genetics, Inc. is developing a diagnostic and therapeutic system that involves an FDA-cleared test, the ForeCYTE Breast Health Test, to identify women at high risk of future breast cancer and then a treatment for the precancerous changes before they become malignant.

The ForeCYTE test operates like the 'Pap smear for the breast,' by using a modified breast pump to collect a tiny sample from the ducts in each nipple, where 85 percent of cancers arise. The cells are then studied in the laboratory with advanced genomic tools that tell whether the cells are normal or are beginning to grow abnormally (but before they are "committed" to being cancerous). The therapeutic system, now in the research phase, will provide pharmaceutical formulations that can be introduced into a "sick duct" and reverse the early changes before they become malignant.

This technique avoids treating the entire patient with powerful but toxic drugs, instead acknowledging that the problem lies with a milk duct that is about two inches long and the diameter of a strand of angel hair pasta. Because of the expected safety profile of this local delivery method, Atossa hopes to develop treatments to reverse the early, precancerous changes, called atypical ductal hyperplasia, before they advance to cancer. This approach to breast health can be likened to cardiology, in which heart attacks-which were once treated after the fact-are today prevented by diagnosing high cholesterol and then taking appropriate measures to treat it.

If Atossa succeeds, with precancerous changes diagnosed during routine checkups and then treated immediately, the zeal for prophylactic mastectomy could wane in the not-too-distant future as breast cancer becomes preventable instead of treatable.

More info at www.atossagenetics.com