Image : Getty.
Sharon Osbourne revealed this week that she had an elective double mastectomy after learning she had a gene that increases her risk of breast cancer. The operation is usually reserved for women who already have cancer, but the 60-year-old co-host of The Talk said she had the surgery to prevent cancer from striking down the road.
“I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with that shadow hanging over me,” Osbourne recently told the British magazine, Hello!
According to Julie Silver, MD, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and author of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope & Healing for Your Breast Cancer Journey, Osbourne’s decision to undergo the radical surgery wasn’t some celebrity whim.
“For someone who tests positive for BRCA–the breast cancer gene–a prophylactic mastectomy is often lifesaving,” Dr. Silver says.
Having a mastectomy to stay one step ahead of cancer can be dramatic and heart wrenching choice, but Dr. Silver says it can be a game changer in high risk situations. A woman who is genetically predisposed to developing breast cancer is far less likely to ever be diagnosed with the disease after having the surgery.
07/11/2012 : By LIz Neporent / Health Magazine.
let's hope she will be all right. it just made me think that sometimes the things we expect to happen never happen
ReplyDelete