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After she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Terry Smith kept working — and except for two weeks of sick leave she stayed in relatively good health. One reason the Ottawa woman did so well, despite surgery and radiation treatments, is that she was able to avoid chemotherapy and its side-effects.

“It was wonderful,” she said. “It would have really affected everything, including my health and my job.”

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Her story is becoming more common as new research and diagnostic tools improve doctors’ understanding of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to treating cancer. Often that means patients who would have had chemotherapy in the past can now avoid it.

Is this the beginning of the end of chemotherapy? Oncologists say there will always be a role for the treatment, but for many cancer patients, the answer is yes.

The ability to get the same outcomes with less chemotherapy is the biggest recent development in breast cancer treatment, says medical oncologist Dr. Mark Clemons, a clinical investigator of cancer therapeutics at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. The trend is being cheered by doctors and patients.