Stage 2 Breast Cancer Treatment Options
Surgery is the norm. For smaller tumors, you can breast conservation surgery, or surgical removal of tumors, i.e. only the tumor and some surrounding tissue are removed. For larger tumors, you might require a mastectomy. In both cases, the surgeon will be able to remove some lymph nodes. After a mastectomy, you may choose to perform breast reconstruction surgery.
Only the doctor knows exactly what Your treatment options are. Stage 2 breast cancer treatment options - Because every woman and cancer itself is different. But in General, women with early stage breast cancer requires two types of treatment. Direct treatment of the breast, called treatment zone, and care of the entire body, called the Treatment System. The treatment zone is surgery and radiation therapy. Systemic treatment is chemotherapy, hormone therapy or both.
Apart from writing that we describe above, you should also understand the choices about surgery. For surgery, patients can choose between two options: 1. Mammography: Surgery to remove the entire breast. Most women mastectomy reconstructive surgery can also make nipples that were cut. 2. Breast conservation therapy (also known as conservative surgery): surgery to remove the cancer cells and parts of the surrounding healthy tissue (called the outskirts). The women who choose this method can maintain their breasts. But they always had to undergo radiotherapy after surgery to destroy any remaining cancer cells.
Radiation therapy is usually associated with tumor removal. Can kill cancer cells that are left. Some women who undergo a mastectomy will receive radiation therapy, especially if his large tumors or has cancer cells in the lymph nodes. See Also: radiotherapy for breast cancer side effects.
Of post-operative chemotherapy can help kill cancer cells that are left behind. Some people undergo chemotherapy before surgery to try to shrink the tumor. If the tumor is responding and shrinking, the operation can be used to remove the tumor. You can get the chemotherapy in several different ways: oral or intravenous. Depending on the type of treatment, you may be given chemotherapy to rest your body during chemotherapy.
Stage 2 breast cancer treatment options - Of post-operative hormone therapy can help women with hormone receptor of cancer. That means cancer need hormones to grow. A drug that could prevent tumors from getting the hormones. These drugs including tamoxifen for all women, and anastrozole (Arimidex), exemestane (Aromasin), and letrozole (Femara) for postmenopausal women. Women who do not reach the menopause can consider their ovaries removed to prevent the production of hormones. Patients also can take, such as leuprolide (Lupron) or goserelin (Zoladex), to prevent the ovaries do not remove hormones.
Targeted therapy is a treatment that is more recent. In about 20% of women with breast cancer, too many HER2 proteins cause cancer to spread quickly. ADO-emtansine (Kadcyla) trastuzumab, lapatinib (Tykerb), pertuzumab (Perjeta) and trastuzumab (Herceptin) treats women with the HER2 positive. They are blocking this protein-protein from developing cancer and can make chemotherapy more effective. This is often used in combination with chemotherapy.
Stage 2 breast cancer treatment options - Apart from the breast or conservative surgery, most women also will undergo surgery to remove the lymph nodes under the arm. Lymph nodes are bean-shaped organs that filter and retain the cancer cells (Figure 1). Depending on the type of cancer and the rate of its spread, the patient may require systemic treatment with substances that slow and stop the growth of cancer cells. This article only focuses on the surgical options that may be owned by the patient, not the systemic treatment exclusively or the operation of the lymph nodes.