Some oncologists suggest that, for certain early cancers not at risk of spreading, the term “cancer” should be avoided.
A diagnosis is more than words on a page. It’s everything that comes with it: the doctor’s tone of voice, a gentle touch of the hand, the pauses left so the patient can digest the news. All of these details subtly impart how you should think about the label that you’ve just been given.
But one diagnostic word in particular threatens to derail any rational discussion of its meaning: cancer.
“‘Cancer’ is just this panic word,” said Laura Scherer, a social psychologist at the University of Colorado who studies how doctors communicate risk. Patients compare hearing the term to “getting hit by a truck, like they can’t process anything that comes after,” she said.
Kirsten McCaffery, a health researcher and psychologist at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, added, “That ‘cancer’ label is kind of an anxiety bomb that goes off for patients.”
That’s why some oncologists argue that, for certain early cancers that aren’t at risk of spreading, the medical profession should do away with the word altogether.
At the heart of the debate is the common breast cancer diagnosis DCIS, or ductal carcinoma in situ. The phrase, which describes cancer cells confined to the lining of the milk ducts, is somewhat of an oxymoron. The National Cancer Institute defines cancer as cells that, if left untreated, will grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body; “in situ,” however, means limited to one place.