Word: tumors
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...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...
...OUTLOOK Depending on tumor size and other characteristics, 76% to 88% of women live at least five years after their diagnosis...
...cancer in a lymph node would be a clear signal that chemotherapy was required. But at the upcoming meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in May, a group of cancer experts will recommend that these minute malignancies be left alone, as long as the original breast tumor is small. "We used to seek out and destroy every cell," says Dr. Eva Singletary, a breast surgeon at the M.D. Anderson Center in Houston, who chairs the expert panel. "Now we try to target and control our treatment...
Ideally, Singletary would like to be able to tailor each woman's treatment to the characteristics of her particular tumor. Already scientists have identified a biological marker called the HER2 receptor, whose presence usually signifies a very aggressive cancer. For the past four years, a drug called Herceptin has been given to women with metastatic tumors that make a lot of the HER2 protein. Now trials are being conducted to see if Herceptin, which may have some deleterious effects on the heart, will nonetheless help other women with smaller tumors that haven't yet spread...
...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...