Epidemiologic evidence of slow growing, nonprogressive or regressive breast cancer: A systematic review.

The general aim of this systematic review is to mitigate breast cancer (BC) overdiagnosis and overtreatment. The prevalence of invasive BC undiagnosed during lifetime range was 0-1.5%, while for DCIS the range was 0.2-14.7%. Spontaneous regression: 2 cohort studies, 3 case reports, 1 case series included. In the cohort studies the relative risk of regression for screen detected compared with nonscreened BC was estimated as 1.2 and 1.1. It seems plausible that around 10% of invasive BC are not symptomatic during life, and that one fifth of BC patients if untreated would be alive after 5 years. Around 1 of 10 screen-detected BC may regress according two studies.
Source: Current Awareness Service for Health (CASH) - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news