So some things DO change. There were no biopsies, no informed consent, as late as the 1970s. Doctors had spoken up against the Halstead radical mastectomy introduced in 1896 for some fifty years before it disappeared as a treatment. That is how long it took for the preferred treatment to change to a total mastectomy, and now to lumpectomy. Women with breast cancer are aggressively treated.
Breast cancer is among the most treated of all cancers.
In fact, breast cancer survival statistics have not greatly increased since those numbers began being recorded. The last 5-year report showed a possible increase in survival rates among Caucasian women under age 50. The next 5- year report may show this trend more clearly. Women are misled often in the world of breastcancer. Many doctors state, with total authority, statistics that are misleading or wrong.