DURHAM, N.C. (WNCN) — A Duke Researcher's work could one day make treatment less invasive for some women with a precancerous condition sometimes called "stage-zero breast cancer." Early study results suggest regular monitoring may be just as safe and effective as surgery and radiation. In 2014, doctors diagnosed Laura Colletti, of Pittsbor, with ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS. Your health concerns addressed on our weekly House Calls  "It's scary, she said. "I initially felt some dread and I was nervous about it." She was also nervous about the treatment usually given for DCIS - surgery and often radiation. DCIS can lead to invasive breast cancer but doesn't always. "Probably somewhere between 20% and 30% of women eventually get cancer related to the DCIS, so the majority of women with DCIS are probably never destined to have cancer," explained Dr. Shelley Hwang, director of the Breast Oncology Program and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Surgery at Duke. DCIS is often called stage 0 breast cancer. Hwang prefers the term "pre-cancer." She says about a third of women diagnosed with DCIS get a mastectomy and the rest generally get a lumpectomy and radiation. "We're treating this precancer in order to prevent cancer, but the treatment that we give to prevent the cancer is the same that we would give if the patient got cancer," Hwang noted. "I started worrying that a lot of people we were operating on weren't really benefiting." Hwang is working to figure out whether this aggressive treatment is really necessary for everyone.   Her research, the COMET study, which stands for Comparing an Operation to Monitoring with or without Endocrine Therapy,  looks at women with low-risk DCIS, comparing those who have surgery with those who have a less invasive approach  - mammograms every six months - to monitor their condition. Results after two years are promising. "We found that in the surgery group, the likelihood of having an invasive cancer was 5.9% and in the active monitoring group it was 4.2%," explained Hwang, who recently presented her research. Colletti is excited about the findings. She had mammograms every six months after her diagnosis of DCIS. "I was nervous every time waiting for the results, in the exam room," she recalled. "But every time I went, they were saying everything looks good" Colletti also had endocrine therapy, which Hwang says likely played a role in reducing the risk of invasive cancer among study participants. She also noted that not all DCIS patients were enrolled in the study, only those doctors expected to be at low risk for invasive cancer. While we only have short-term results from the COMET study so far, Hwang believes those results are promising. "[They] should be reassuring to patients that if you have this kind of DCIS, it's not an emergency," she noted. "This is a different diagnosis from cancer and they have time to think about what their options are and hopefully there will be more options for them in the future."   Colletti hopes so too. "I don't want women to have to go through the surgery and radiation unless they absolutely have to," she said. "I think we should have choices."