A study has stated that if given radiotherapy after surgery, there are less chances of women developing the invasive breast cancer and this is more applicable to women with the most common type of non-invasive breast cancer.

The likelihood of cancer reduces returning after surgery with tamoxifen treatment and this has been concluded by the research.

Milk ducts of the breast that represents 20-25 per cent of breast cancers detected during NHS cancer screening were looked into for cancer by Jack Cuzick from Cancer Research UK and Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry in London and colleagues who examined the evidence from a trial involving the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

A large increase in the diagnosis of DCIS over the past twenty years has taken place by the introduction of the UK National Health Service Breast Screening Programme.

Cuzick said, “DCIS is a precursor lesion that will become cancer in most cases if not treated. It still hasn’t broken through the basement membrane. And it’s not an invasive cancer yet. But it has all the characteristics of an invasive cancer and, if left untreated, will become an invasive cancer.”

Hormone therapy and radiotherapy are included in the usual treatments after breast-conserving surgery. There is a chance of local recurrence of cancer in the opposite breast despite survival following treatment being about 98 per cent.