Two recent studies suggest that some early breast cancer patients may skip certain surgeries, potentially reducing treatment burdens. Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine questions the necessity of removing lymph nodes, while another study in the Journal of the American Medical Association proposes a wait-and-see approach instead of immediate surgery for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). These findings, discussed at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, may inform future treatment decisions. Dr. Monica Morrow, however, cautions that more extended studies are needed before making definitive changes.
The two-year DCIS study followed over 950 low-risk DCIS patients who were randomly assigned to surgery or monitoring. After two years, the rates of invasive cancer were both low and similar: roughly 6% in the surgery group and about 4% in the monitoring group being diagnosed with invasive cancer. Researchers will continue to track these patients over the next decade to determine if these initial findings persist.
The second study, conducted in Germany, evaluated whether lymph node removal is essential for women with early breast cancer undergoing breast-conserving surgery. Of the nearly 5,000 women tracked, about 92% of women in both the surgery and non-surgery groups were cancer-free and alive five years later. As such, the study suggests that removing lymph nodes "does not improve survival" and may be unnecessary for some patients. However, some women may still need the procedure to guide drug treatment post-surgery. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)
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