Word: lymph
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...William Halsted, devised the operation that soon became the standard treatment in the U.S. for breast cancer, a disease that now strikes 106,000 women and claims 34,000 lives a year. It is the radical mastectomy, which involves cutting away not only the breast but also the lymph nodes in the armpit, and underlying chest muscles. Yet with more breast cancer being detected at earlier stages, the trend has been away from disfiguring if often lifesaving "radicals." Still, 25,000 women a year undergo these operations, largely at their physicians' behest...
...leading doctors and researchers, including surgeons, made the strongest public plea yet for a reversal of this surgical practice. After a nine-hour debate, they concluded what an increasing number of studies have been showing: that if breast cancer is discovered when tumors are still small (even if nearby lymph nodes are also cancerous), radicals may no longer be the preferred treatment. For such cases, although not necessarily in more advanced ones, the NIH "consensus" panel endorsed the so-called total mastectomy, with removal of some lymph nodes. This procedure, the panelists said, would not lessen chances of survival...
...them make this discovery while the cancer is still confined to the breast. Following prompt treatment, usually a mastectomy, chances of survival are good: 85% of the women are alive five years later. But for too many women, the cancer is discovered after it has spread to the lymph nodes. By then the odds for survival are nowhere near as high. Even with chemotherapy the cancer often recurs...
Symptons include a rash, possibly a small fever, and the swelling of the lymph glands in the back of the neck, Wacker said. "Basically the patient will feel very tired," he added...
...recent years towards less disfiguring surgery. He said National Institute of Health figures indicate the number of women having radical mastectomies was halved between 1970 and 1976 while the number having modified radical surgery (which does not involve removal of the chest muscle or total dissection of the lymph nodes) more than tripled...