In Reply.—My colleagues and I wish to thank Drs Brody and Deapen for their letter and continued interest in our article.
The typical American woman with breast cancer presents with a palpable lesion with an average diameter of 2.7 cm, with symptoms that have persisted approximately one to three months, and with metastases to axillary nodes 40% of the time. Our group of previously augmented patients with breast cancer and their group both have patients who are quite similar to this average patient with breast cancer. Neither of the groups' patients have early breast cancer by current standards.
Drs Brody and Deapen have 17 previously augmented patients, 38% of whom had positive nodes; our article presented 20 patients, 65% of whom had positive nodes (we currently have 27 patients, 56% of whom had metastases to axillary nodes at the time of presentation). The Los Angeles County registry has 5876