Women diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are confused about whether or not DCIS is cancer or not. MDs are no different! About 2% of DCIS cancers are lethal and the other 98% will die with it and not from it. Twenty to twenty five percent of all breast cancers are DCIS. Mainstream treatment for this condition includes surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Women and many MDs are questioning this approach, but it is good news for the pharmaceutical companies, surgeons, radiologists, and oncologists because treating DCIS is an extremely profitable business.
The diagnosis is usually made by mammography, and differentiation between those cancers that are potentially lethal and those that are incidental is not possible using mammograms. It may be possible using breast thermography to get more information about which of these tumors is most likely to be malignant.