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HealthDay (10/7, Norton) reports on a study (10/7) published in the BMJ finding that “even with recent strides in breast cancer treatment, a woman’s chances of surviving the disease still partly depend on early detection.” The study was based on the experience of about 174,000 Dutch breast cancer patients. It found that while survival rates were higher in 2012 than in 1999, they were still “best when their tumors were caught early.” From 2006-20012, the five-year survival rate was 88 percent for breast cancer patients, while it had been 83 percent from 1999 to 2005. Even among those with tumors greater than 2 inches across, the rate improved from 63 percent in the earlier period to 73 percent in the later. The study still found that for women with tumors less than three-quarters of an inch across “nearly all” survived for five years.