Shortly after the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act passed in 1998, evidence arose about variable rates of breast reconstruction in the United States. That evidence showed that whether or not a woman had breast reconstruction depended a great deal on where she lived, what kind of health insurance she had, how much money she made, and her race/ethnicity.¹ Twenty years later, practice variations in breast reconstruction persist. Surgeons, patients, and policymakers have responded with various initiatives to increase the use of reconstruction, such as awareness campaigns and laws that require surgeons to discuss the procedure. Although these efforts are reasonable, the issue of who should have breast reconstruction is not so simple. Rather, the effectiveness of breast reconstruction has not been fully established, and evidence of its overuse exists.

在1998年《妇女健康和癌症权利法》通过后不久，就出现了有关美国乳房重建率各不相同的证据。这些证据表明，妇女是否进行乳房再造在很大程度上取决于她的住所，她所拥有的健康保险，她赚了多少钱以及她的种族/民族。^1个二十年后，乳房重建的实践方法仍然存在。外科医生，患者和政策制定者已经采取了各种措施来增加重建的使用，例如开展宣传运动和要求外科医生讨论手术程序的法律。尽管这些努力是合理的，但是谁应该进行乳房再造的问题并不是那么简单。相反，乳房重建的有效性尚未完全确立，并且存在过度使用乳房的证据。