PHOENIX -- Every three minutes, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer -- that's 1 in 8 women in the United States. But an increasing number of women aren't waiting to be diagnosed before taking matters into their own hands.

Marie George watched two of her sisters battle cancer and said that was enough to spur her to take up the fight before being diagnosed.

"I'm a walking time bomb as far as I was concerned," George said.

George is one of a growing number of women going under the knife to remove healthy breasts in the hope of saving themselves from cancer.

Diagnosis Spurs Decisive Action

Kerry Scherting didn't have a long family history of cancer when she found the lump in her left breast.

"I was in the shower, just washing with soap under my arm and I ran across it and I was like, 'Oh! That's new,'" Scherting said.

Diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer, the 36-year-old mother of three decided she wasn't going to wait for it to spread.

"I just want to be a wife and a mom. And if I have a chance at that, I'll do anything it takes," Scherting said.

Instead of attacking her cancer and starting chemotherapy, Scherting decided to have both breasts removed at the same time, even though one was still healthy.

"I ended up having the double mastectomy, which I guess some people call radical. I just found that out. We're learning a lot," Scherting said.

Mastectomies May Reduce Risk

At the six Banner hospitals in the Phoenix area, doctors performed 140 mastectomies last year. Dr. Sandy Gladding, of Arrow Surgical Associates at Banner Estrella, estimated roughly 10 percent were purely preventive.

"This is not just about cold steel and skin. This is about your life and how you're going to live it from this moment forward," Gladding said.

Prophylactic mastectomies -- surgically removing healthy breasts before cancer is detected -- can reduce the risk of developing breast cancer by more than 90 percent.

"I think it's a person by person case. It is still not something that can be handed out as a blanket prescription," Gladding said.

DNA Test Pinpoints 'Cancer Gene'

"You can't replace your life," George said.

Worried by her family history, George took a DNA test.

"I just said, 'If it comes back where I do have this gene, I'm just going to have everything removed,'" George said.

When she found out she was a carrier for BRCA1, a gene mutation that increases the chances of developing breast cancer by up to 85 percent, George not only removed both of her healthy breasts; she also had a hysterectomy.

"A lot of people said, 'Gee, you know, you're so brave,' and I thought, no, I wasn't brave. I was a coward, I didn't want to get cancer," George said.

Because George never had cancer, her family and even the surgical nurses had a hard time believing she was taking such extreme measures.

"They thought, 'You didn't have cancer and you've had all this surgery?'" George said.

Her siblings got tested and found five of the six had the same breast cancer gene. The two sisters who'd already had surgery went back to have their other breasts removed.

"I had no regrets. I'd do it again. I'd do it again in a heartbeat," George said.

George said even if she didn't have the dangerous gene, she would have done the same thing.

One of her two daughters, though, doesn't even want to take the DNA test.

Is It Worth It?

"This is not a death sentence. This is something you can beat," Scherting said.

Scherting and her husband said for them, eliminating the risk and the worry was worth it.

"Look around you. Look at your life. See what's really the true importance of your life," Scherting said.

While preventive mastectomies may almost eliminate the risk of breast cancer, there is no guarantee. Dr. Edgar Hernandez, of Chandler Regional Medical Center, said he favors breast preservation and said even in cases of breast cancer diagnosis, he's conservative. He said full mastectomies are only really necessary about 10 percent of the time.

Most insurance companies will cover both double-mastectomies and hysterectomies if there's a family history of cancer or if a woman tests positive for the gene.

The DNA test for the breast cancer gene costs between $1,200 and $3,500.