Doctors Scrutinize Overtreatment, As Cancer Death Rates Decline
Are some people getting too much treatment for their cancers? The answer, from the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, is an emphatic yes.
For many years, the death rate from cancer climbed steadily, and the focus of big cancer meetings was the quest for better treatments to bring malignancies under control. Cancer death rates have been falling in recent decades, and that's allowed researchers to ask another important question: Are some people getting too much treatment for their cancers?
The answer, from the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago these past few days, is an emphatic yes.
One dramatic example relates to the most common form of breast cancer, known as hormone-positive, HER-2 negative disease. For many women who have this diagnosis, but for whom the disease has not spread to lymph nodes, a
