What is Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS) ?
By Salma Nurul
ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast
Have you just returned from hospital and the results of your mammogram or other imaging tests are abnormal? Your doctor said you have earliest stage of breast cancer (ductal carcinoma in situ) and you will be shocked. Let’s make calm yourself down, take a deep breath and hold it for a count of 10 and then slowly release it.
Learn more about the disease, what you need to know? Actually, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is not an invasive cancer, the cancer cells stay inside the milk duct of your breast without growing through into the surrounding breast tissue, to the lymph nodes and to the other organs.
How much information do you want to know about your disease? You have to know ductal carcinoma in situ usually appears in two different form, non-comedo and comedo, which describe how the cells look under a microscope on phatological examination. Between comedo type ductal carcinoma in situ and other non-comedo types are able to easily distinguish, comedo type DCIS tends to plug the center of the breast ducts with necrosis (dead cells), but left untreated it to be more aggressive than non-comedo type.
Nearly all cancers at this stage is not harmful, DCIS does have the ability over a long period to become invasive cancer if untreated, so these tumors have to be completely removed. Although ductal carcinoma in situ should be treated to prevent, it has an indicator of increased risk for developing into an invasive breast cancer.
There are several treatment for your desease, your medicians can help you to decice on treatment options. For example lumpectomy, followed by radiation, lumpectomy followed by five years of tamoxifen, and mastectomy are the most common treatments, and survival rates are very good between 95% and 100%. So, hurry up discuss to your doctor to choose the best treatment options and fight the disease and kill it.