The potential life-saving result of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy ? the removal of a healthy breast in patients where breast cancer was present in the other breast ? is beyond discussion; however, it is far from being generally implemented. Acceptance by the patient, already traumatized by unilateral surgery for malignancy, is truly difficult. Arguments against this drastic intervention range from understandable reluctance to disfigurement and fear of loss of sexual stimulation (both by the patient and her partner) to the unwillingness of health insurers to defray the cost of additional surgery and perhaps subsequent breast reconstruction.
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