DOCTORS here have urged patients not to panic after an American
study found that removing cancerous lymph nodes from some
breast-cancer sufferers did not improve survival rates.
The study has led some clinics in the United States to change
the way they carry out treatment. But hospitals and cancer centres
here are not following suit, saying that more extensive studies are
needed.
There is no need for patients scheduled to have all their lymph
nodes removed to panic, said Parkway Cancer Centre's medical
director, Dr Ang Peng Tiam.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women here. There
were 7,160 new cases and 1,649 deaths between 2004 and 2008, said
the latest Singapore Cancer Registry report.
The US study, published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association this month, involved 891 women with early-stage
tumours. They were given sentinel lymph node biopsies, which detect
cancer in lymph nodes. They were then randomly chosen to have 10 or
more nodes removed or no action taken.
Both groups had similar five-year survival rates - 92.5 per cent
for those who had nodes removed, and 91.8 per cent for those who
did not.
-- ST