LORIS trial

This trial has been set up to compare surgery with 'active monitoring' i.e. by having yearly mammograms for low risk ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

DCIS means that there are abnormal cells in the milk ducts in your breast but not in any other breast tissue. Doctors can classify DCIS as high, intermediate or low grade. Because high grade DCIS is more likely to become breast cancer, it is treated as if it is an invasive cancer. But many doctors are not sure that low or intermediate grade DCIS would ever become invasive cancer.

Most women have surgery to remove DCIS. This may be surgery to remove the breast (a mastectomy). Or it may be surgery to remove just the area of the breast containing the DCIS (a wide local excision). In this trial, some women will have surgery. Some won’t have surgery, but will have a mammogram once a year for 10 years. The researchers call this active monitoring.

The aim of the trial is to learn whether women with low risk DCIS can safely avoid having surgery.


More details about the trial can be found here and on the Cancer Research UK website