Breast cancer is one of the most feared diseases of all women.  It claims more than 40,000 American women's lives per year.  There is a lot of good news about breast cancer, however.  First:  when diagnosed and treated in its earliest stage, 97% of breast cancers can be cured.  That's very good news!  We asked expert breast cancer surgeon Dr. Michelle Blackwood to share more recent good news from medical research discoveries in the fight against breast cancer.

"The good news about breast cancer part two, is that we may have found a third gene for breast cancer.  That would be BRCA-3.  Several studies will confirm this.  These patients would be at higher risk to develop breast cancer in their lifetime."

Why is that good news?  Because we soon will be able to offer blood tests to identify those women and highest risks and treat them very early and very aggressively.  Other good news about breast cancer?

"The other good news about breast cancer is that breast cancer mutations or people with BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 who underwent a prophylactic oophorectomy, meaning that they had their ovaries taken out, had a decreased risk of breast cancer by up to 40%".

This is good news because it offers impressive data about another surgical treatment option for those women.

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Created: 4/5/2001  -  Donnica Moore, M.D.