Breast Cancer Treatment

Treating Breast Cancer

Though breast cancer is neither the deadliest cancer women get nor the most common life-threatening illness, it is almost always the disease women fear more than any other. Women fear losing so many things when diagnosed with breast cancer - their hair due to some treatments, their breast(s), their dignity, and their lives. To help lessen this fear, let's look at some of the options for treatment.

Treatment Options

Treating breast cancer can involve either local and/or systematic treatment. Local treatment means to get rid of any cancer cells in the breast itself, either through surgery or radiation. Systematic treatment means to destroy any cancerous cells outside of the breast and can be done through chemotherapy or hormone therapy.

There are two strategies that work well to get rid of the cancer cells in the breast. The first is having a mastectomy, or removal of the whole breast. The other is to have a lumpectomy that removes only the obvious area of cancer and a margin of tissue around it. Many times a lumpectomy is done in combination with radiation to destroy any residual cells.

When the breast cancer is unable to be treated locally, systematic treatment is recommended. Hormonal therapy is an option some women choose. The drug tamoxifen has been successful for some. Tamoxifen does not kill cancer cells, but actually prevents them from growing. For postmenopausal women with breast cancer, this seems to be more effective than chemotherapy in extending their lives.

Chemotherapy is the other systematic option, usually given to premenopausal women with any positive lymph nodes, no matter how small. Postmenopausal women usually do better with hormonal therapy.

Other Cancers

There are many other cancers besides breast cancer that women should know about. These are the cancers of the female reproductive system including cancers of the ovary, uterus, cervix, vagina, and vulva. These account for about 13% of all women's cancers diagnosed in the U.S. The most common of these is cancer of the uterus, with 32,000 new cases diagnosed each year. Many of these cancers do have high cure rates now, thanks to the new ways to detect problems early and new treatment methods.

Whether it be breast cancer or any other female cancer, it is so important for women to educate themselves and learn more about these diseases. We encourage you to learn more by reading What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer.