A new study has found that women who choose among different breast cancer treatment options make smarter choices when getting the information and making decisions in small doses rather than all at once, as is customary.

"It's long been known that people who aren't good with numbers have a harder time understanding the risk information they need to make good medical decisions," said Brian Zikmund-Fisher, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a research assistant professor at the University of Michigan Health System.

Zikmund-Fisher and co-authors Peter Ubel and Andrea Angott of Duke University tested whether asking women to make a series of simpler choices rather than one complex decision would help them understand when aggressive post-surgery therapies, such as chemotherapy, actually yield larger benefits.