2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15
Nearly a decade after undergoing a double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer, a woman in Missouri learned that the DNA test result that led to her surgery was wrong. In an interview with the Kansas KSHB channel, Maureen Boesen recounted her odyssey.
Cancer is common in Boesen's family: Her grandmother died of ovarian cancer at age 44, and her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 32. Therefore, she and her three sisters underwent a study when they were girls - at ages 3, 5, and 7 - to see if she had a harmful mutation in the BRCA gene that would greatly increase her chances of developing breast cancer.
The test revealed that Boesen did have the mutation as did her sister Bridget, but Kathryn did not. Upon learning of the result when she turned 21, she decided to remove her breasts as a preventive measure. "We feel empowered to know," she said of learning about the result with her sisters.
When asking the person in charge of the medical study if there was any remote possibility that the results were erroneous, he assured him that it was not. Boesen removed both breasts at age 23 and was unable to breastfeed the three children she had after the operation.
Since the genetic mutation also put her at higher risk for developing ovarian cancer, she considered having a hysterectomy, an operation to remove the uterus. Before undergoing that surgery, he had another genetic test requested by his health insurance to reconfirm that he had the genetic mutation in the BRCA gene. Upon receiving the results, he went into shock. His doctor informed him that it was negative, that he did not have the genetic mutation, so the result of the first DNA test was wrong.
"I felt angry, sorry," says the young mother after removing her breasts for no reason. "I was happy, I was sad. I desperately wanted to feel relieved, [saying] 'Thank you God, this is the best day of my life', but it wasn't,”she admits about finding out that she was healthy and had undergone a double mastectomy without medical necessity. "It was just devastating."
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