Brutal behavior: Should we really be doing this to women?
Known as ductal carcinoma in situ, or D.C.I.S., the Stage O breast cancer condition equates to the finding of abnormal cells, confined to the milk ducts of the breast. Diagnosed cases of D.C.I.S. have soared in recent years due to advanced mammography, which is now able to detect even the smallest of lesions.
Before mammography became available around 1980, the number of women diagnosed with D.C.I.S. each year tallied only in the hundreds. If deadly breast cancers actually started out as D.C.I.S., then the incidence of these aggressive breast cancers should have declined immensely as D.C.I.S. detection rose. But that simply hasn’t been the case.
Instead, evidence shows that patients with this condition have no greater likelihood of dying of breast cancer than women in the general population.