Word: breasted
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Because MRI is particularly good at diagnosing small tumors - and picking up abnormalities that mammograms may miss in young women with dense breast tissue - which may cause undue anxiety. Evidence suggests that women who opt for MRIs tend to react to seeing their lesions, whether they are cancerous or not, by having their entire breast removed rather than just a portion of the tissue. "I just saw two patients who both had MRIs done at an outside institution, and both came in wanting mastectomies based on the MRI findings," says Dr. Anthony Lucci, a surgical oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer...
Women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer are faced with a tough choice - either to have parts of the affected breast removed, a procedure followed by several weeks of potentially toxic radiation therapy, or to opt for a mastectomy, removing the entire breast and contending with the disfigurement that entails. The decision typically rests on where and how widespread the tumors are. It's no wonder, then, that more and more women are relying on high-tech MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans to help them examine their cancer and choose the right treatment...
...good idea, say researchers in a commentary appearing in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, a publication of the American Cancer Society. The authors looked at studies pitting preoperative use of MRI, which relies on magnetic waves, against mammograms and similar tests that use radiation to take pictures of breast tissue. Researchers found that women choosing MRIs often ended up with more aggressive surgery - much of which wasn't necessary - than women who did not use the scans. What's more, employing the newer and more sensitive MRI technology did not improve a woman's chance of surviving cancer...
While there is no doubt that MRIs are more sensitive than mammograms, says Dr. Daniel Hayes, clinical director of breast oncology at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and a co-author of the commentary, it's not clear that the technique is more specific than mammography. Studies of each diagnostic screen have shown that compared to mammograms, MRIs can pick up additional cancer lesions 16% of the time. "But," says Hayes, "the question is whether they are biologically important...
...risk of recurrence in women treated for early-stage breast cancer ranges from 5% to 10% in the 10 years after diagnosis. Three decades of studies have shown that lumpectomy combined with radiation therapy yields the same survival and recurrence rates as mastectomy; while more cancer may remain in a breast following lumpectomy, these lesions are generally destroyed by the radiation, which gives the two procedures the same outcomes. Yet women receiving an MRI tend to choose the more invasive approach. (Read about the benefits of post-cancer weightlifting...