I remember when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 42, and I was terrified. With my overactive playwright's imagination, I was already writing the obituary in my mind. At the time, I knew very few women who had had breast cancer, certainly not my age, and I imagined the worst. Four years later, I am still here. Like the 1985 Toyota I insist on driving, I am slightly dented and a little slower, but still on the road.

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St. Louis Post-Dipatch Editorial

Commentary: Support clinical trials to improve cancer treatment
By Gerard Doherty, M.D.
Sunday, October 15, 2000

Diagnosed with a small breast cancer in 1960, a woman was offered only one treatment, radical mastectomy. This operation involved the removal of the entire breast and lymph nodes from under the arm, as well as the chest wall skin and muscles, creating a wound that required a skin graft to cover the ribs. The same diagnosis today is often addressed by breast conservation therapy, removing only the part of the breast containing the tumor (lumpectomy), separately removing the one or two lymph nodes that drain the involved part of the breast (sentinel lymph node biopsy), and treating the breast tissue with radiation therapy. Why the change?

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