1) “I don't want to take chances.”: A qualitative exploration of surgical decision making in young breast cancer survivors.

Andrea Patenaude’s team tries to understand why young women with unilateral breast cancer are increasingly choosing contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM), despite its limited medical benefit for most women. In the paper published on Psycho-oncology they elicit a few main themes in patients’ interviews, and describe how often women were concerned about a future breast event, despite the low risk.

Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pon.4683

2) Maternal perceptions of BRCA genetic counseling communication processes about disclosing cancer risk information to children and adult relatives.

Andrea Patenaude and her colleagues report the validity of a novel measure aimed to assess the communication patterns in BRCA patients’ families: the Genetic Counseling Communication Process. When the assessment includes family communication to potentially at‐risk relatives, authors highlight that most but not all sessions addressed this topic. Cancer family history, child age, and maternal attitudes are important co‐factors in these patient‐provider communication exchanges.

Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pon.4733