Discoveries
Breast cancer research aims to improve patient outcomes
Two recently completed studies could lead to changes in how doctors treat breast cancer patients. One, led by Julia Wong, MD, and Jay Harris, MD, was designed to settle a controversy over how aggressively doctors should treat a very early-stage form of breast cancer known as ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS.
Begun in 1994, the research aimed to determine whether these patients could be safely treated with surgery alone and not need radiation therapy afterward. The hope was that removing the DCIS tissue with a wide margin of cancer-free tissue around it would be sufficient to prevent recurrence, an approach already in use in some places. To the researchers' surprise, the recurrence rate was high enough that the study was halted in 2002. Harris predicted the results would change practice nationwide.
Julia Wong, MD, (left) and Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, conducted two studies.
In the second investigation, Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, used the Internet to survey young breast cancer survivors about their fears that the treatment would reduce their chances of bearing children. More than half of the women, who were age 40 or younger, shared these concerns, and the majority of them overestimated their risk of infertility. Partridge said the results underscore the need for health-care providers to better educate such women about these issues.
Both studies were presented at the 26th annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, which drew about 6,000 researchers and clinicians from 80 countries.
