Finding access to meaningful statistics is not easy.
I have tried to look at the various efficacy rates of treatment options for various groups including young sufferers by trawling the net. I have emailed various organisations eg American Cancer Society but they only know of the national statisics. This link gives some ideas of the complexities.
http://www.natlbcc.org/bin/index.asp...nid=1&depid=20
This one gives some overall figures.
HTTP://IMAGINIS.COM/BREASTHEALTH/STATISTICS.ASP#5
It is important to bear in mind statisitics are population and not patient orientated, there is always hope.
Genetic tesing is now a reality and I have seen at least two products on the market. This link gives some ideas as to the issues. With increasing sophistication questions are often raised as to the absoulte accuracy of current staging methods, and there is an argument for having a test done, but access to and affordablity are proabably other issues. It appears to be relatiely new technology and has not been adopted mainstream. Overtreatment is also a reported issue, and has to be a magor factor for youger women see below.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/news...p?newsid=28842
Younger women are generally reported as being less satisfied with treatment, and clearly fertility and sexuality are big factors in taking treatment decisions.
http://store.yahoo.com/annieapplesee...nwomproba.html
http://www.cancerlynx.com/bonedry.html
I will try and find some of the items I have saved and post them. It is a huge subject. Please bear in mind that many of the trials are funded by commercial organisations, with all the implications that has just in terms of human frailty, free lunches, invested time. desire to please, peer pressure, and so regretably there are no absolutes...
RT does work at reducing local and contrlateral reoccurence, primarily. Its impact on distant spread is less clear. Statistics for RT and boost show significant further improvement.
Unfortunately many trials of tamoxifen use no treatment rather than RT as a base point - this includes the large Oxford trial. Those that use RT as a baseline produce less clear results. Tamoxifen has an impact as a preventative according to a recent trail, however it is reported it may even antagonise in some groups (cyclin d).
Here is a link to a very informative site. This small part of a very large site deals with side effects of Tamoxifen.
http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/...e7#Section_261
For younger women many available chemo statistics show similar results to ablation. Some have questioned the use of chemo, which often causes ablation, if the end point intention is ablation.
http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/...e7#Section_261
This is a very amateur view point based on hours of trawling, and a very samlpe selection of saved odds and ends.
I am not a sufferer and male - just an interested party.
This is such a complex and fast changing subject. As somebody who I guess feels the need for understanding and answers I can only suggest you search the web and check out NCI, Annieappleseed, Cancerlynx, NCBI etc. I am afraid that your head will still feel like spaggetti but you maybe will have cut out the chances of self what if recrimination, and form your own perceptions in the fog.
Finally the only thing that I have concluded and am certain about is that BALANCING OMEGA THREE AND SIX, combined with good diet - cheap in comparison, accessible and very limited side effects with reported benfits as high as 70% reductions- has to make sense as a starting point whatever else is decided.
More questions than answers I'm afraid.
RB
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