Death from ductal carcinoma in situ is very low except in young and black women, US data show

The risk of death from breast cancer is very low in women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) except in those whose condition is diagnosed before age 35 and in black women, a long term follow-up study of US cancer data has shown.1 The findings have prompted calls for a change to more focused treatment of women with highest risk DCIS.2

The study, published in JAMA Oncology, followed up 108 196 women who had DCIS diagnosed from 1988 to 2011 using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry. Researchers compared the participants’ risk of dying from breast cancer with women in the general population.

DCIS, or stage 0 breast cancer, accounts for around 20% of breast cancers detected …