Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffDuctal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is considered the earliest form of breast cancer. In DCIS, abnormal cells multiply and form a growth within a milk duct of your breast. DCIS is noninvasive, meaning it hasn't spread out of the milk duct to invade other parts of the breast.
DCIS is usually found during mammogram screenings, but it can be difficult to detect. Because of increased screening with mammograms, the rate at which DCIS is diagnosed has increased dramatically in recent years.
While DCIS isn't life-threatening, it does require treatment to prevent the condition from becoming invasive. Most women with DCIS are effectively treated with breast-conserving surgery and radiation.
- What is breast cancer? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_is_breast_cancer_5.asp?sitearea=. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- Lagios MD. Breast ductal carcinoma in situ and microinvasive carcinoma. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- Meisner ALW, et al. Breast disease: Benign and malignant. Medical Clinics of North America. 2008;92:1115.
- Do we know what causes breast cancer? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_Do_we_know_what_causes_breast_cancer_5.asp?rnav=cri. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- Costanza ME, et al. Epidemiology and risk factors for breast cancer. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- The basics of DCIS. Breastcancer.org. http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/types/dcis/basics.jsp. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- Can breast cancer be found early? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_3X_Can_breast_cancer_be_found_early_5.asp?rnav=cri. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- Hulvat MC, et al. Multidisciplinary care for patients with breast cancer. Surgical Clinics of North America. 2009;89:133.
- How is breast cancer treated? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_4X_Treatment_of_stage_0_breast_cancer.asp?rnav=cri. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- The emotional impact of a cancer diagnosis. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/MBC/content/MBC_4_1X_The_Emotional_Impact_of_A_Cancer_Diagnosis.asp?sitearea=MBC. Accessed May 7, 2009.
- What are the risk factors for breast cancer? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_What_are_the_risk_factors_for_breast_cancer_5.asp?rnav=cri. Accessed May 7, 2009.
