New treatment paradigms for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ

One of the most poorly understood clinical diagnoses in breast cancer is ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which now accounts for almost one third of all mammographically detected malignancies. Detection and diagnosis of DCIS have improved, and mature data from randomized controlled trials of lumpectomy for DCIS have provided some measure of the magnitude of benefit to be derived from adjuvant treatments. The past 5 years have seen the emergence of molecular prognostic tools, which together with clinical factors have the potential to allow better selection of individualized therapies for these heterogeneous lesions. Ongoing and future research to identify which patients with DCIS can be safely managed with active surveillance are underway and will create opportunities to better understand the biology of this disease, thereby informing treatment strategies that are more closely aligned with the invasive potential of specific DCIS subtypes. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.