Word: cm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...intriguing study on invasive tumors, begun in 1988, provides some clues. The trial included about 1,200 women whose tumors were less than 2 cm across with no evidence of malignancy in their lymph nodes and whose cancer cells looked, under the microscope, as if they weren't particularly dangerous. Although these women did not receive the "watchful waiting" approach pioneered in prostate-cancer patients, they weren't treated as aggressively as they might have been. For five years after their tumors were surgically removed, doctors did nothing more unless there was a recurrence. Though 11% of the women...
Many doctors would recommend chemotherapy to a woman whose tumor measures 2 cm across, even if it has shown no sign of spreading to the lymph nodes. Why? There is always the possibility that some cancer cells have already escaped to the rest of the body through the bloodstream...
...often does that happen? Statisticians estimate that 20 of every 100 women who get only mastectomy (or lumpectomy plus radiation) for a 2-cm tumor that has not spread to the lymph nodes would, all other things being equal, suffer a recurrence sometime in the next five to 10 years. Fourteen of those tumors would have come back regardless of whether any additional therapies had been tried. The remaining six would have been prevented by chemotherapy. "For a 6% improvement, that's a lot of women who have to accept chemotherapy," says Dr. Gralow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research...
...DEFINITION Some of the cells from the tumor, which now measures 2 cm or less, spill out of the duct. There is no evidence of cancer in the lymph nodes...
...DEFINITION Most tumors in this category measure 2-5 cm but have not spread to the lymph nodes...