1. We Can Change the Course of
Breast Cancer
Scientific advances in breast cancer treatment and ensuring women
benefit from them
Dennis L Citrin, MB, ChB, PhD
Medical Oncologist
Cancer Treatment Centers of America® in Illinois
© 2013 Rising Tide

2. Advances in Breast Cancer Knowledge
• Embrace all Modalities
• Characterization of tumor sub-types
• Identification of specific cellular targets
• Many effective treatment choices available

3. Breast Cancer: A New Paradigm
The Old
• Surgically remove tumor
• Recommend additional
drug/radiation treatment
based on:
– stage of disease
– (limited) biologic information
The New
• Obtain all relevant
information (including
genomics) before planning
multi-disciplinary
treatment
• Surgery is often NOT the
first treatment.

4. An Example:
Breast MRI, June 2011

5. An Example:
Breast MRI, September 2011

6. What Factors Prevent Women from
Benefiting from Advances in Breast
Cancer Treatment?
• Patient delay
• Patient non-compliance
• Physicians slow to implement new paradigm

7. Delayed Diagnosis of Breast Cancer: the
CTCA Experience
• 12 month period: 591 patients with breast cancer
• Retrospective review of their medical records revealed 66
(11%) patients delayed diagnosis and/or treatment for at
least 6 months
• 23 patients tried to “treat” their cancer with alternative
therapies only for 18 months, on average
• 43 patients denied alternative therapies, median delay 12
months

8. Effect of Delay on Stage of Disease

9. Patient Non-Compliance
• 383 patients over 3 year period with recurrent breast
cancer, following treatment elsewhere for early
stage disease
• 222 patients (58%) completed primary treatment
• 161 patients (42%) did not complete primary
treatment

10. Why Do Women Delay Seeking Help or
Refuse Treatment?
• Fear of cancer
• Fear of cancer treatment
• Denial
• Lack of information
• Misinformation

11. Welcome to Breast Cancer Deception, an
eye-opening special report by Mike Adams,
the Health Ranger.
This is a shocking, tell-all report that
exposes the scam of today's breast cancer
industry, revealing how conventional breast
cancer detection and treatment programs
are actually designed to ensnare women
into a very harmful (but highly lucrative)
system of toxic treatments that will only
cause permanent damage to her health
Learn more:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_Brea
st_Cancer_Deception_0.html#ixzz2bTZHe9
2m

12. Physicians are Slow to
Implement New Paradigm

13. An Example:
Patient History
April 2013:
• 51 year old woman presented with large mass in her left breast
• Negative family history
• BRCA negative
• Biopsy confirmed high grade triple negative cancer
May 2013 :
• Had bilateral mastectomy
• Pathology: 5.4 cm cancer left breast
• One node positive
• Right breast normal
Aug 2013: came to CTCA

14. Conclusions
• Scientific advances have greatly increased our knowledge
about breast cancer
• As a result modern treatment is much more effective and less
invasive/toxic for patients
• Many thousands of women are still denying themselves, or
are being denied the benefits of modern treatment
• Media can play a vital role in helping doctors communicate
with and educate women in this area