Hello GillyCoops and thanks for posting,

After successful breast cancer treatment it is possible to develop a second new cancer in the other breast, this won't happen to most women so in general preventative mastectomy isn't offered to the majority of patients.  Doctors tend to call this type of surgery 'risk reducing' rather than preventative because it doesn't completely eliminate risk, they usually say it reduces the risk by around 90%.

Risk reducing mastectomy is more often considered in women with an inherited faulty cancer gene that places them in a particularly high risk group. But there is no harm in you talking this over with your GP. I assume you have been discharged from the hospital and, if so, you could ask to be referred back to get some specialist advice about this. 

I think the fear of cancer coming back can be a challenging thing to cope with and surgery might seem like a partial solution, but I expect this thought has crossed your mind.

I hope some others come along and post their experiences, if not you could try posting on the forum of another charity Breast Cancer Now.   

If you want to talk anything over our number is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and we around from 9-5 weekdays.

Best wishes, 

Julia

Thank you so much for this. I feel reassured. I was discharged after about 5 years and finished tamoxifen a year ago. I just seem to hear so many sad stories now of cancer remerging in people but I guess I need to hold my nerve and hope I am one of the lucky ones. It doesn't help that my brother passed away in April after tonsil cancer. His radiotherapy didn't start for 5 months, presumably a backlog knock on from covid, and sadly a year after diagnosis and an initial prognosis that all would be completely curable he died on the 21 st of April. Wishing everyone on here success in beating this disease. X