New Breast Cancer Study Leaves Patients & Doctors Confused

This study concerns ductal cancer in situ (DCIS).  Many doctors believe this should not be classified as a cancer, but as a risk factor for cancer.  The confusion centers around whether or not this condition should be treated and, if so, as to how it should be treated.

The results of the case study of more than 100,000 women whose progress was followed for 20 years was published in JAMA Oncology.  The confusing part seemed to be centered around the fact that about 3% of the women with this condition eventually died from breast cancer... whether they were treated or not.

Half of the women who had DCIS  tumors and were treated with radiation (and were told they were cured) later died of breast cancer.  The returning deadly breast cancer may not have caused any symptoms until it was too late.  How can this be?

"Not all invasive cancers are lumps," said Dr. Deanna Attai, a breast surgeon at the University of California Los Angeles. "All it takes are a few cells to burrow their way through."

And, that's what I have been telling patients for years.  It is, in my opinion, disingenuous for a doctor to tell a person that he or she is "cancer free" or "cured" of cancer when this is nearly impossible to determine.  Cancer cells can exist in the blood or other cells without detection for years.  That is why it is so very important to maintain as healthy an environment as possible, both internally and externally,  to give our bodies a fighting chance in this very unhealthy world.

So many women with breast cancer or DCIS undergo surgery in addition to the chemo and/or radiation.  That decision must be between the woman and her doctor.  However, before the decision to have a radical mastectomy is made, it would be a good idea to remember this statement from Dr. Peggy Porter, a breast cancer researcher in Seattle: (relating to DCIS or invasive breast cancer)

"The survival from a radical mastectomy is no better than survival from a lumpectomy (which just removed the tumor and surrounding tissue)"

Dr. Esther
drkollars@gmail.com
fixdhealthcare.com