Treating precancers reduces breast cancer deaths

Breast cancer deaths rose through the '70s and '80s, but declined in the '90s. For nearly the past 20 years, American women have had about a 2% annual drop in the breast cancer death rate.Here is the mortality graph provided by the National Cancer Institutes SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results) program.Though nobody wants to take the blame for the rise in breast cancer deaths in the '70s and '80s, lots of people want credit for the fall of breast cancer deaths that began in the '90s. Was it due to a reduction to the exposure of carcinogens, or to better treatment, or to earlier diagnosis? The fall in breast cancer deaths does not seem to be due to cancer prevention. While the deaths from breast cancer were falling, there was an apparent rise in the incidence of breast cancer cases. Here is the SEER graph for the incidence in breast cancer in the U.S.Since the breast cancer incidence rose while the deaths from breast cancer dropped, it seemed as though the benefit must have come from better treatment or earlier detection. A major study, attempting to resolve this issue, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, in 2005:Effect of screening and adjuvant therapy on mortality from breast cancer.Berry DA, Cronin KA, Plevritis SK, Fryback DG, Clarke L, Zelen M, Mandelblatt JS, Yakovlev AY, Habbema JD, Feuer EJ; Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) Collaborators. N Engl J Med 353:1784-1792, 2005.They concluded that that 28 to 65...
Source: Specified Life - Category: Pathologists Tags: cancer prevention cancer treatment early treatment precancer precancer treatment preneoplasia preneoplastic Source Type: blogs