Trisha Stotler Meyer holds her son, Max, 3, at their home in Vienna, Va., on Sunday. Stotler Meyer recently had both breasts removed following a 2005 diagnosis of cancer in one breast.

WASHINGTON — Removing just her cancer, not her whole breast, at first sounded like a good option to Trisha Stotler Meyer. Then two years later, a cyst in her healthy breast sparked terrifying new checkups.

"It was at that moment that my breasts became like tonsils," is how Meyer, 37, puts it. "I don't need them anymore. They're gone."

She's not alone. More women who have cancer in only one breast are getting both breasts removed, says research that found the trend more than doubled in just six years.

It's still a rare option: Most breast cancer in this country is treated by lumpectomy, removing just the tumor while saving the breast.

But the new study suggests 4.5 percent of breast cancer surgery in 2003 involved women getting cancerous and healthy breasts simultaneously removed, a 150 percent increase from 1998 — with no sign that the trend was slowing.

Young women are most likely to choose the aggressive operation, researchers report Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The concern is whether they're choosing in the heat of the moment — breast cancer surgery often is within two weeks of diagnosis — or with good understanding of the pros and cons.

"Are these realistic decisions or not?" asks Dr. Todd Tuttle, cancer surgery chief at the University of Minnesota, who led the study after more women sought the option in his own hospital.

"I'm afraid that women believe having their opposite breast removed is somehow going to improve their breast cancer survival. In fact, it probably will not affect their survival," he said.

But removing the remaining healthy breast does greatly lower, although not eliminate, chances of a new cancer developing on the opposite side.

Don't underestimate the peace of mind that brings, said Meyer, of Vienna, Va.

"Doctors are not up at night crying" in fear of their next mammogram, she said. "I don't want to have to deal with the stress."

Meyer was diagnosed with cancer in January 2005, shortly after her son's birth. She had a lumpectomy, followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

But she didn't qualify for anti-hormone drugs that protect many women against cancer in the remaining breast. And in March — after finding a lump that turned out to be a cyst that waxed and waned — she started considering a return to the operating room. Three weeks ago, she had both breasts removed.

In a single day last week, Dr. Shawna Willey of Georgetown University's Lombardi Cancer Center had two patients seek that same operation.

One needed her entire cancerous breast removed, and immediately asked to have the healthy one removed, too. Another woman had recently undergone a lumpectomy and was sick from chemotherapy — and returned to ask that both breasts be fully removed."Her perception is, 'If I have my breasts taken off, I never have to do this again,"' said Willey, who asked the woman to see a counselor and finish chemo before deciding."I can understand that point of view," she added. "But I always tell them, it's not a guarantee."The American Cancer Society estimates 178,480 U.S. women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. About 40,460 will die of it.Some women at high risk, because of notorious breast cancer genes, choose preventive mastectomies before cancer ever strikes.Tuttle's study is the first national look at how many women choose to remove both a diseased and healthy breast together.He used a government cancer registry that covers 16 regions, a representative sample of the U.S. population, to track more than 150,000 breast cancer surgeries between 1998 and 2003.