Does Risk-Reducing Surgery Benefit Young Breast Cancer Survivors with BRCA Mutations?

For carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, we've long known that bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO) and bilateral mastectomy reduce cancer risk in those organs. Similarly, for patients with BRCA mutations who develop breast cancer and undergo risk-reducing BSO (RRBSO), breast cancer–related survival is improved. How about overall survival? Researchers retrospectively studied an international cohort of >5000 young patients (≤40 years) who received a diagnosis of stage I–III breast cancer from 2000 to 2020.

Patients could have undergone breast-conserving surgery or mastectomy as primary surgical therapy for the initial breast cancer. Overall, 64% of patients were BRCA1 pathogenic variant carriers, 51% had node-negative disease, and 46% had h…