Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 22, 1990                   TAG: 9006220313
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

LUMPECTOMY JUST AS SAFE, PANEL RULES

Mastectomies, in which the entire breast is removed, and lumpectomies, in which only the tumor is removed, both give "excellent" results for Stage I and Stage II breast cancer, the panel said.

"The therapies appear to be equivalent in survival," said Dr. William Wood, a Harvard Medical School surgeon and chairman of the committee. "We believe it is preferable to preserve an organ."

Mastectomy is still the most commonly used therapy for early stage breast cancer, Wood said. A lumpectomy is followed with radiation therapy, and Wood said some patients choose mastectomy because they "prefer to lose a breast instead of have six weeks of radiation therapy."

The committee of 15 experts was assembled by the National Institutes of Health to consider research on the survival of women with early stages of breast cancer and to develop a consensus on what therapy should be used to treat the disease.

In its report, the committee said surgery in which the breast is saved, or conserved, "is an appropriate method of primary therapy for the majority of women with Stage I and II breast cancer, and is preferable" because the breast is preserved and the survival chances are the same as for mastectomy.

- Associated Press