At breakfast, I usually flick through The Independent.

It’s been a while since anything I’ve read has delighted me as much as what I came across on pages 4 and 5 this morning.

Scientists have discovered 10 different genetic markers for 10 different types of breast cancer. It’s early days, but it looks as though current ways of categorising the disease – hormone-positive, HER2-positive – will be replaced by ways that allow for better, more targeted, more effective treatment. As journalist Steve Connor puts it:

It would mean that breast cancer patients in the future would have a genetic test before doctors decide on which treatment options to consider. This would end the blunderbuss approach of past therapy, leading to custom-designed “silver bullets” to treat cancer subtypes.

….At present, some patients are receiving treatment that serves no benefit and is likely to have harmful side effects.

You don’t say, Steve. There are lots of women like me who have sucked up ‘better safe than sorry’ treatment, and if that means I’m here, then I don’t mind. But I LOVE the idea that sometime in the foreseeable future, another generation of the freshly-diagnosed won’t have to. Many a slip twixt cup and lip, and all that, but – yay!

You can read the article in full here. Please do. It’s certainly made my day.