New Thinking in Treating Breast Cancer?

With more advancements in treating breast cancer, U.S. and European doctors are mulling if treatment should still include chemotherapy.

According to a report Friday in the New York Times, two large studies are getting under way that will test a new philosophy in treating the disease. That new approach would give chemotherapy only to the 30 percent of breast-cancer cases not driven by the hormone estrogen, the Times reported. Currently, national guidelines advise administering chemotherapy to nearly all of the approximately 200,000 women diagnose with the disease each year.

One of the studies testing the possible new method of treating breast cancer is being launched in the United States, while the other will begin in Europe, the newspaper said.

The new paradigm in this disease area has taken shape as treatment regimens have added new drugs and applied chemotherapy at shorter intervals, the report said.

But the new thinking still has its skeptics. Some of us feel like we have enough information to start backing off on chemotherapy for select patients, and others are less convinced, said the report, quoting Eric Winer with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.