The 14 percent of women who had casting-type calcifications, even in very small tumors, accounted for 73 percent of the deaths. The authors conclude that the presence of casting-type calcifications on screening mammography can signal early breast cancer with a particularly high risk of poor survival. They assert that these lesions behave like much larger tumors and require aggressive treatment. While the general rule that smaller lesions have a better prognosis remains true, the results of this study suggest that physicians need to be increasingly sophisticated in developing treatment plans and offering advice about prognosis for each patient. These results also suggest that some patients with microscopic lesions will be well advised to undergo more extensive surgery and more intensive follow-up than others.
Breast cancer is certainly more than one disease.
A person viewing it online may make one printout of the material and may use that printout only for his or her personal, non-commercial reference.