{"id":5881,"date":"2019-05-14T21:17:39","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T21:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmshub.wpengine.com\/?p=246751"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:17:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:17:12","slug":"should-surgery-and-radiation-be-the-standard-treatment-for-dcis-the-comet-study-is-finding-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/should-surgery-and-radiation-be-the-standard-treatment-for-dcis-the-comet-study-is-finding-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Surgery And Radiation Be The Standard Treatment For DCIS? The COMET Study Is Finding Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 1 out of every 5<\/a> new breast cancer diagnoses are categorized as DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ), making up roughly 60,000 cases in the United States every year.<\/span>When women receive a diagnosis of DCIS \u2014 also known as Stage 0 cancer or pre-cancer \u2014 their doctors often recommend that they get a mastectomy or lumpectomy, in case the cancer becomes aggressive.<\/span>But what if more doctors adopted a \u201cwait and see\u201d approach?<\/span>Dr. Shelley Hwang, who is the chief of breast surgery at the Duke Cancer Institute, is leading a study to determine what happens when women don\u2019t immediately go under the knife after a DCIS diagnosis.<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/alfa27<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u201cThe estimates are that about 70% of women who are diagnosed with DCIS may never develop invasive cancer,\u201d Dr. Hwang says in the video below, \u201cand so what the study is trying to determine is whether it may be safe to monitor those women rather than intervening early with surgery or radiation.\u201d<\/span>The results of this study could overhaul how pre-cancer in the breast is treated.<\/span>A diagnosis of DCIS didn\u2019t even really exist before mammograms. But ever since doctors have been able to see breast cancer at such an early stage \u2014 before it has the chance to become invasive \u2014 they\u2019ve treated it aggressively.<\/span>The ten-year survival rate for DCIS is 98% to 99%, so treating it aggressively obviously works. But what if doctors could treat it less<\/em> aggressively and still get those same results?<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/romaset<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u201cDCIS is treated now as it has been for the past 40 years,\u201d Dr. Hwang said<\/a> during an interview at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).<\/span>Surgery comes with its own side effects, both mental and physical, and a mastectomy often goes hand-in-hand with more surgeries to reconstruct the breast. And if an infection sets in, women undergo even more surgeries.<\/span>\u201cWe\u2019re getting all of these new diagnoses before we really know what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Dr. Hwang told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/a>. \u201cThe question is what are we going to do with all that information? It creates tremendous anxiety and that leads to a lot of unnecessary procedures.\u201d<\/span>But, on the flip side, taking a less aggressive approach can make both patients and doctors nervous, and rightly so. Will taking some time to monitor pre-cancer just allow it to become invasive?<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/srisakorn<\/span>
\n<\/span>There is still a lot the medical community doesn\u2019t know<\/a> about DCIS, like if there are genetic markers or biomarkers that can predict if the pre-cancer will turn invasive, and how long it will take until it does<\/em> turn invasive.<\/span>So in 2017, Dr. Hwang began a clinical trial that seeks to find the best treatment path for women with a DCIS diagnosis. It\u2019s called COMET<\/a>, which stands for Comparison of Operative to Monitoring and Endocrine Therapy.<\/span>Participants are women who are age 40 or older who have been diagnosed with low-risk DCIS. They are randomly split into two groups: in one group, women undergo the standard treatment for DCIS, which is typically either a lumpectomy or a mastectomy; in the other group, women go under \u201cactive surveillance,\u201d which includes regular screenings as well as endocrine therapy (hormone therapy) if needed.<\/span>Her end goal is to enroll 1,200 women with low-risk DCIS at about 100 cancer centers throughout the US. Currently, 260 women are enrolled and the study is still actively recruiting. (To contact them about enrolling, head to their contact page here<\/a>.)<\/span>
\n<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/freshidea<\/span>It will be a few years before results are available.<\/span>Dr. Hwang knows that active surveillance won\u2019t work for some women, who would perhaps experience heightened anxiety having to wait rather than taking immediate action. There is not a one-size-fits all approach to cancer treatment.<\/span>Hopefully once we have more information about the nature of DCIS, there will be more options available for treating it effectively without over-treating it, and women can undergo the treatment plan that works best for their situation.<\/span>Learn more about the trial in this video.<\/span>Proper BCS greatergood_ctg_abovevideo<\/span><\/span>Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 1 out of every 5 new breast cancer diagnoses are categorized as DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ), making up roughly 60,000 cases in the United States every year.When women receive a diagnosis of DCIS \u2014 also known as Stage 0 cancer or pre-cancer \u2014 their doctors often recommend that they get a mastectomy or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45789,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5881\/revisions\/45789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}