What is breast cancer doing before we can detect it?

Breast cancer is a cellular disease and the cellular kinetic events in the predetectable period are of great clinical significance. Such events include rate of replication, angiogenesis with distant metastasis, rate of cell death, and the number of cells needed to produce a detectable and later a symptomatic mass of neoplasm. A consideration of these events and their interrelatedness is reported using data from The Breast Cancer Detection and Demonstration Projects and significant reports in the literature. Growth rates in the predetectable period are estimated to be much faster than those that occur with grossly measurable breast cancers in keeping with the prediction of Gompertzian growth.