Breast Cancer Survival Rates, Treatment Options Improve

Women diagnosed with breast cancer today find that it no longer carries a death sentence.

"The attitude of women toward the disease is changing as treatments improve and mortality from the disease declines," said Dr. Jenny Chang, an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

In the past decade, the death rate from breast cancer has decreased by 25 percent in the United States, while the incidence of breast cancer has remained unchanged.

Much of the decline in mortality is attributed to better treatment regimens, including the use of the drug tamoxifen. Tamoxifen is used both to prevent breast cancer from developing and to keep it from recurring following surgery.

"This is a dramatic decline, and it will likely continue to go down as we see the results from wide scale mammography screening," said Dr. Chang, also an oncologist at the Breast Care Center at Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital.

Mammograms did not become a routine part of health care until the mid- to late-1980s.

Along with fewer deaths attributed to breast cancer, the advances in treatment have also changed attitudes toward the disease.

"There are still a lot of misconceptions about treatment for breast cancer," Dr. Chang said. "While hair loss continues to be a side effect of chemotherapy, nausea and vomiting are now rare and fatigue is not a major problem for most women. It's a substantial change from 10 years ago. Women come in, take a tablet to keep them from becoming nauseated, have the chemotherapy treatment and go back to their normal routine."

Now, women who are diagnosed with breast cancer are becoming more informed and less fearful of the disease.

"Women are empowered with knowledge and are able to take control of their lives. That has made a phenomenal difference in how they view this disease," Dr. Chang said.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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