Breast cancer

Breast cancer is a disease of awesome proportions that afflicts one in every eleven American women and is still the leading cause of cancer mortality in women. In recent years, public attention has been focused on breast cancer as a result of the medical debate regarding screening, detection and treatment. This chapter reviews the major elements of this controversy, summarizes the different pathologic forms of breast cancer, describes the imaging process from the vantage point of both screening and detection as well as staging, and, finally, discusses some of the treatment controversies