Wait-And-See Approach Raises Breast-Cancer Risks NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Some breast-cancer screening guidelines suggest that women who get certain abnormal results return early for their next screening, rather than immediately undergo additional testing. That practice, according a study by a Canadian research team, can lead to dangerous delays in diagnosing cancer. The researchers found that women diagnosed with breast cancer (news - web sites) more than 20 weeks after receiving their first suspicious screening results were more likely to have large cancers, or cancers that had spread, if the delay since their initial screening had been longer. The finding indicates that putting off diagnosis, in addition to increasing patients' anxiety by prolonging their uncertainty, can result in cancer being more advanced by the time it's identified, according to the report in the in the April 15 issue of the journal Cancer. "We confirmed that if [physicians and patients] wait on it, the cancer does grow enough that it may alter the prognosis," study coauthor Lisa Kan of the British Columbia Cancer Agency-Vancouver Island Centre, in Victoria, told Reuters Health. Kan and colleagues from seven Canadian medical institutions pooled data from breast-cancer screening programs to identify several thousand women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer between 1990 and 1998 after getting suspicious screening results. The researchers classified women according to how much time had elapsed between their suspicious screening and their cancer diagnosis. They also noted which women had received abnormal, highly suspicious screening results and which had been diagnosed after getting results that were abnormal but less suspicious. [04/16/2002; Reuters Health] Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.