In the UK, nearly 10,000 young women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year and the treatment for many is mastectomy – the surgical removal of one or more of their breasts. It's easy to assume that the effect on their body image will be negative, and UK guidelines currently state that all mastectomy patients should be told about options for reconstructive surgery. However, a key message to emerge from anew survey of young women who have undergone mastectomy is that there is huge variability in how they are affected, and that any support therefore needs to be individualised.
Sarah Grogan and Jayne Mechan (the latter has a diagnosis of breast cancer) conducted an online survey of 49 women recruited via an online support network, all of whom had undergone unilateral or bilateral mastectomy before the age of 45. Analysing their answers, the researchers identified four main themes.
[For more of this story go to http://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/...-different-ways.html]
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