Reports are everywhere in the media about which celebrities underwent prophylactic mastectomy, the difficulty of their decision, and why these women made the choice. These media reports can be helpful to our community as they raise awareness of hereditary cancer risk and risk-management and remove the stigma of mastectomy. However, given the media focus on mastectomy, it would be easy to assume that surgery is the only option for high-risk women, when in fact, there are several options available to women who are at increased risk for breast cancer. When the media focuses solely on surgical risk-management, they may inadvertently send a message that this the only way to manage increased risk for breast cancer. Some women may avoid seeking information about their risk for fear that their only recourse will be surgery.

Risk is a spectrum. We know how to identify individuals in the highest risk category for breast…