DCIS Treatment Options
Posted 9/8/2009
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Women who are diagnosed with DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) often face an array of confusing treatment choices. Until, perhaps, ten or twelve years ago, the standard treatment for DCIS was mastectomy. This inevitably seemed baffling--how come women with invasive cancer could often have a lumpectomy and radiation and women with pre-cancer, DCIS, needed a mastectomy? This situation has changed and, unless the DCIS is very diffuse or multi-focal (in several different places in the breast), lumpectomy/radiation is usually an option. Trying to decide which is best, however, is often still tricky.
Once again, Living Beyond Breast Cancer (www.lbbc.org) has a great resource about this situation:
Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS): Understanding Your Diagnosis and Treatment Options with Powel Brown, MD, PhD. Understand how ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) differs from invasive breast cancer and how information in your pathology report helps determine treatment options and risk of invasive breast cancer. Get information on early detection with mammograms and MRI, learn about standard treatments and hear about new therapies in the pipeline. Dr. Brown also discusses tamoxifen and its impact on fertility and the use of complementary therapies.
If you want to read the whole transcript:
http://www.lbbc.org/data/transcript-file/LBBCdcis09.pdf
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