Nationwide Trends in Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomies: An Analysis of 55,060 Unilateral Breast Cancer Patients

BACKGROUND: The effects of recent initiatives to better educate unilateral breast cancer (UBC) patients about contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) have not been fully examined. The purpose of this study was to update and examine recent annual CPM trends by evaluating 2015–2020 data from a large administrative claims database. We also sought to determine if there were any variations in trends among different age groups and reconstructive modalities. METHODS: Patients diagnosed with UBC between 2015 and 2019 were identified in Optum Clinformatics DataMart. Patients were then categorized by age group, whether they underwent CPM, whether they underwent breast reconstruction (BR), timing of any BR (immediate or delayed), and type of BR (implant-based or autologous). RESULTS: Of 55,060 patients who were diagnosed with UBC, 2625 (4.8%) underwent CPM. After a slight decline from 2015 to 2016, the CPM rate among UBC patients increased significantly from 3.4% in 2016 to 6.8% in 2019. Although this upward trend remained consistent across all age groups examined, younger UBC patients represented a significantly higher and faster growing percentage of those undergoing CPM. BR rates among those who underwent CPM also increased between 2015 and 2019, with implant-based and immediate BR becoming more heavily favored over autologous and delayed BR. CONCLUSIONS: CPM rates continued to rise between 2016 and 2019 and younger women represented a substantially higher and faster growing percentage of UBC patients undergoing CPM than older women. In addition, implant-based and immediate BR are becoming more heavily favored over autologous and delayed BR.