Recent research indicates that some women diagnosed with the earliest stages of breast cancer might not need immediate surgery or radiation therapy. Instead, careful monitoring could be a viable alternative, only resorting to more aggressive treatments if the disease shows signs of advancing.
This approach mirrors strategies already employed in early prostate cancer, where doctors aim to reduce unnecessary treatments to spare patients from potential side effects and financial costs.
"This is really the first study to confirm our suspicions that there’s a subset of low-risk patients that could do just as well without surgery," said Nancy Chan, a breast cancer specialist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center. "It’s really encouraging."
However, some medical professionals caution that more long-term data is needed to ensure this practice is safe. The debate continues on how aggressively to treat this form of early-stage cancer, and even whether it should be classified as cancer.
Approximately 300,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer each year. Additionally, about 50,000 women are diagnosed with stage zero breast cancer, also known as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). In DCIS, cancer cells are present in the milk ducts but have not spread to breast tissue. While DCIS poses minimal immediate risk, it can potentially develop into invasive cancer if left unchecked.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
