O.C. Study Says Lumpectomies, Mastectomies Equally Effective

Hoag Hospital said Friday that its own 10-year study of those with breast cancer confirms a UC Irvine study that showed lumpectomy, in which only a cancerous tumor is removed, is just as safe and effective as a mastectomy.

Hoag’s study, analyzing the cases of 875 patients between 1980 and 1990, found a recurrence of breast cancer in less than 1% of the women in the 10 years after lumpectomies with radiation and with mastectomies, in which the entire breast is removed.

Dr. Russell Hafer, director of radiation oncology at Hoag Cancer Center, said the study also showed that the likelihood that cancer would appear later in another part of the body was the same after both surgical procedures, with 89% of the women disease-free at five years and 80% disease-free at 10 years.

“Some surgeons have been reluctant to adopt breast-conservation techniques because they were skeptical the same results could be achieved as with mastectomy,” Hafer said.

The study results have been forwarded to the hospital’s general surgical staff.

The UCI study, released last month, studied 6,000 Orange County women.