Postoperative radiotherapy after DCIS: Useful for whom?
Karlsson P
The Breast
Article in Press
The number of patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) increases with more widely used screening mammography programs. DCIS accounts for approximately 20% of all new breast cancer diagnoses in these programs and the natural course of this heterogeneous group of pre-invasive lesions is not fully known. Better definition of subgroups benefitting from radiotherapy and knowledge on the natural course of DCIS are important issues for the future management of DCIS.Four large randomized trials have studied the effects of postoperative radiotherapy after breast conserving surgery in patients with wider spectrum of DCIS and all of them have shown radiotherapy to halve the risk of ipsilateral events, however, without any significant effect on breast cancer mortality.
