Parade Magazine's Breast Cancer Article

[dlaxague]

Hi Lee,

I hadn't seen this but after reading your post I found it online, here:

http://www.parade.com/health/2008/10...fter-diagnosis

or tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/5lsb2z

It's a bit vague about details, and not very good writing, but didn't really seem inaccurate as far as it went. I've known women with DCIS who had similar experiences - some having as many as 3 lumpectomies and still not achieving clean margins and in the end, having a mastectomy. But they didn't regret the attempts with lumpectomy because by the time they got to mastectomy they knew it was necessary. DCIS, because it often follows along the ductal "trees" of the breast, can sometimes be quite widespread while still not being invasive.

As far as taking risks - DCIS treatment is different from invasive cancer. Removing it with clean margins, and then sometimes radiation afterwards, is the extent of therapy. Most DCIS would probably never threaten life but some will progress to invasive cancer - they are learning more but not there yet as far as knowing which is which. Some women are also offered hormonal treatment, to reduce the risk of new primaries, I think.

(In an aside, I have a local friend who had a recurrence or new primary of DCIS after lumpectomy. At that point, standard treatment is mastectomy and she received that recommendation from 3 surgeons before going to UCSF where she is participating in a trial. She took an AI for 3 months, had another lumpectomy, and is continuing on the AI with frequent surveilance. My friend is an enthusiastic, high-energy personality and she really clicked with Laura Esserman's style at UCSF.)

I hope that the take-home message received by people reading this article was that it's always good to get second opinions. That's not a bad message.

Debbie Laxague