Why Doctors are ReThinking Breast-Cancer Treatment

Too much chemo. Too much radiation. And way too many mastectomies

Too much chemo, too much radiation, and too many mastectomies. Why doctors are rethinking breast cancer treatment
Too much chemo, too much radiation, and too many mastectomies… why doctors are rethinking breast cancer treatment. Image via @TIMEHealth

What if I decide to just do nothing?

“It was kind of a taunt, Desiree Basila admits. Not the sort of thing that usually comes out of the mouth of a woman who’s just been diagnosed with breast cancer. For 20 minutes she’d been grilling her breast surgeon. “Just one more question,” she kept saying, and her surgeon appeared to her to be growing weary. She was trying to figure out what to do about her ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), also known as Stage 0 breast cancer, and she was already on her second opinion. The first surgeon had slapped a photograph of her right breast onto a viewer, pointed to a spot about 5 cm long and 2.5 cm wide and told her there was a slot open the following week for a mastectomy. “…

… continue reading Why Doctors Are Rethinking Breast-Cancer Treatment,
time, Oct. 1, 2015.
Watch the video: Low Risk DCIS Breast-Cancer Treatment New Approach.

Low Risk DCIS Breast-Cancer Treatment New Approach

Why Doctors Are Rethinking Breast-Cancer Treatment

Choosing to Wait: A New Approach to Treating Breast Cancer at it’s Earliest Stages.

More info and videos
  • Colletti, 60, was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), also known as Stage 0 breast cancer, in April 2014. But rather than immediately having surgery, Colletti opted for a new form of alternative treatment: active surveillance.
  • Video published on 6 Oct 2015 by TIME.
  • More research videos on our YT channel.

Breast Cancer Test via Molecule αvβ6 could avoid many unnecessary Mastectomies and Radiotherapy

Significant breakthrough could tackle over-diagnosis and over-treatment of breast cancer

A cross section of a milk duct conduct in the breast, with DCIS and invasive breast cancer cells. Researchers believe they have identified a molecule – called #αvβ6 – that could be key to preventing over-treatment of breast cancer and free thousands of women from undergoing needless surgery and gruelling sessions of radiotherapy.

When we talk about breast cancer this usually means tumours that grow into the surrounding breast tissue, called invasive breast cancer.

However, sometimes cancerous changes develop within the lobules or ducts of the breast and do not break out into the surrounding tissue.

Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) refers to non-invasive cancerous changes that are contained within the ducts. Researchers believe they have identified a molecule – called αvβ6 (alpha v beta 6) – that could be key to preventing over-treatment of breast cancer by revealing which cases of DCIS are most likely to develop into early invasive breast cancer.

Around 4,800 cases of DCIS are diagnosed each year in the UK with early signs of breast cancer but until now doctors have been unable to distinguish between the cases which will become dangerous, and those which do not need treatment.

Scientists say they have made a huge step forward in developing a simple test, which could free half such women from undergoing needless surgery and gruelling sessions of radiotherapy and hormone therapy.

Sources

For DES Daughters, and in the UK