Natural History of Breast Cancer: Early Detection vs. Mortality

The widespread use of mammography to screen for breast cancer has resulted in a decrease in breast tumor detection, as well as decrease in mortality rates associated with the disease. But the natural course of malignant diseases such as different types of cancer can vary considerably. Is it possible-even common-for some invasive breast tumors to regress without treatment? And if this is the case, how could this impact our strategies for screening, diagnosing and treating breast cancer? For more on these intriguing ideas, host Dr. Jennifer Shu welcomes Dr. Per-Henrik Zahl, epidemiologist and senior statistician at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, Norway, and lead author of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that "raises the possibility that the natural course of some screen-detected invasive breast tumors is to spontaneously regress."