Researchers at the Boonshoft School of Medicine have been conducting preventative research against breast cancer. The research is being conducted not only by doctors, but also by students and residents who work for Wright State Physicians, according to Dr. Rebecca Tuttle, researcher and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Wright State.
Tuttle has been working as the principal investigator of the division of surgical oncology. Her research, which started in the past four to six months, is focused on the clinical aspect of breast cancer.
Tuttle’s first project involved observing the stages of breast cancer and the trends over time at which stage women are most commonly diagnosed with. This observation was conducted in relation to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Her theory was that breast cancer service became more affordable for women when the ACA was passed.
At this point, researchers working on this project are still collecting data.
She has also been working on looking at atypical breast lesions – those that are not cancerous, but could an indicator for developing cancer later in life. The project involves looking at the number of women diagnosed with such lesions compared the number taken to surgery for addition sampling, to determine if certain lesions are more indicative of breast cancer.
This project has advanced beyond the data collection phase and is currently in the data analysis phase.
There are multiple projects that researchers are currently working on, all of which are relevant to breast cancer. They usually take between six to twelve months to conduct and finally publish in a medical journal, which is “always the end goal,” according to Tuttle.
