Breast-Conserving Surgery & Recurrance

"One in five British women who have breast-conserving surgery require a reoperation."

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-breast-conserving-surgery-20120713,0,647297

www.latimes.com

I had an inner red flag go up when I was offered lumpectomy vs. mastectomy. The stats say longevity is the same, but there is a slight risk of recurrance with breast-conserving surgery. After two lumpectomies, it was discoverd that I had a second form of breast cancer that was "wide spread" in the same breast with the invasive tumor.  Once I had the bilateral mastectomies, the pathology showed atypical cell changes in the non-cancerous breast.  It looks like I surely would have been one of the recurrance statistics and it might not have been that long before recurrance would have reared its ugly head.  The MRI was not helpful in detecting the wide-spread ductal in situ cancer during my decision process for lumpectomy vs. mastectomy. Am I just an odd duck (don't answer that) or should we be trying to find a way to identify the cancers like mine that are lurking in the shadows, likely to recur, so those women can go straight to mastectomy? I am thoroughly content and even grateful that I decided to hack off  both the offending parties that were gearing up to have a cancer fiesta and kill me!  It would not have been worth it to me to have my breasts an extra six months or a year and half before facing another biopsy or more surgery.  It would have been an unnecessary burden to live with the thought that more cancer could be growing and spreading to my lymph nodes or anywhere else for that matter.  Doctors cannot guarantee that recurrance will be caught before metastasis happens.  I know that my mind is more at ease with my decision, despite having to live with the consequences of losing my breasts.  I still stand by my blog post, "The Tenth Circle of Hell," which identifies the choices and decisions faced by a newly diagnosed woman with breast cancer as those among the most gruelling mental tests in life.  My heart goes out to all who have to wear those shoes.  We need to come together to create a user-friendly, critcal-thinking algorithm to assist our breast cancer sisters in discerning what path to take for their unique situation.