Breast Cancer: The Good, the Bad, the Confusing | HealthInfi

The good news is that cases of breast cancer in the United States, which had been increasing for more than two decades, began dropping around the turn of the century and have continued to do so. It’s thought that the main reason for this decrease is the decline in the use of hormone therapy after menopause.

Every day we hear about a new drug, screening tool or technology that promises to improve our knowledge of health and disease. Generally, the news is good, or at least hopeful, reassuring the public that important research is progressing.  Often, the new breakthroughs  have been demonstrated in the lab or in animal models and has not yet been studied in humans,  a process that could take years.

Sometimes the lab findings do not translate well to the human and the researcher may have to start all over with a new strategy. This is particularly frustrating for individuals who have a disease or condition that is debilitating and could be deadly. The new movie, Extraordinary Measures, is the story about a father who self-funds a researcher to accelerate the process for a promising drug for Pompe disease because his children have the condition.  It is a great example of how driven and focused we can become when our own loved ones are ill.

When a patient is faced with the shock and worry associated with breast cancer, there are many issues to face and decisions to be made. The last thing she needs is to be confused by the results of diagnostic tests. Sometimes a “positive” or “negative” test result can be confusing because it’s not always clear if it is good or bad news.

Your doctor might, for example, tell you that a test result is positive, which gives you the false impression that it’s a good outcome. Similarly, when a result is negative, it sounds bad when it could in fact be good news. It’s important that you fully understand the implications of any test results, but particularly ones in which the results can be ambiguous.

Few things frighten a woman more than discovering a lump in one of her breasts. With good reason: breast cancer may transform a woman’s breast into the vehicle of her death. It is twice as likely to be diagnosed in an American woman today as it was sixty years ago. And the treatment surgery, usually followed by radiation and chemotherapy is disfiguring, painful, and all too often unsuccessful.

I have been researching and treating this disease for more than thirty-five years, a period in which the public’s awareness of breast cancer has risen enormously. The disease has brought into being an entire industry of research organizations, charitable agencies, commercial ventures, and advocacy groups. Every new statistic is trumpeted in the media, and every encouraging research finding, no matter how tenuous, is held up as a potential breakthrough.Read More