“One in every four breast cancer diagnoses today is technically not cancer. While a risky condition, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) can lurk inside the milk ducts of the breast, perhaps indefinitely, without morphing into cancer. A few decades ago, it was virtually never diagnosed, but that picture has changed dramatically with more sensitive imaging tests. Thus, patients and their doctors are now caught in the cross fires of uncertainty. Many of these pre-cancers likely don’t need treatment, but who falls into that group? And how can patients, faced with a diagnosis that contains “carcinoma” in the name possibly make that decision?”
