Mastectomy not always best to treat breast cancer early, researchers say

In some cases women would have been better off having lumpectomy rather than having breast removed, study claimsUp to 200 British women diagnosed with an early form of breast cancer each year might be undergoing mastectomies because of failures in managing treatment, researchers have suggested.Failures by radiologists or pathologists to accurately measure the disease, lack of communication between specialist hospital teams and the patients' choice of surgical procedure mean women are not getting the optimum treatment.In some cases, women would have been better off having a lumpectomy – known as breast conservation surgery – rather than having their breast removed, according to a study into how hospitals treat ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), in which cells in some milk ducts have started to turn into cancer cells but have not generally spread to surrounding breast tissue.In as many as one in five cases detected through the NHS's breast screening programme over nine years, mastectomies were either carried out for tumours less than 20mm wide, a size for which lumpectomy is usually the best procedure, or were needed because lumpectomy had failed after underestimation of the size of tumour.About one in 10 cases of all 30,000 breast cancer cases detected each year are DCIS, most through screening.The disease can be hard to identify because the cells do not necessarily form one clear delineated lump. But there appeared to be wide variations between hospitals involved in the stu...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: The Guardian Health Medical research Society Cancer UK news Breast cancer NHS Editorial Science Source Type: news