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Cancer Information Tips :: Breast Cancer Treatment Options
Breast Cancer Treatment Options: Outlining Breast Cancer Treatment Options
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Breast cancer treatment options are important for every woman to consider.
Most women will have breast cancer touch their lives in some way throughout their life, whether they experience it themselves or whether a friend or family member suffers from the disease or is affected by it.
Breast cancer can be emotionally and psychologically damaging. Breast cancer treatment options can also have those same hardships. In the most severe cases, necessary treatments can be incredibly hard to deal with.
Surgery is still required in most cases of breast cancer. In these cases, lymph nodes are removed to find out if cancer is present.
Lumpectomy
Removing a breast doesn't just cause physical damage to a woman. It can also cause emotional scars.
Because of this, usually a lumpectomy will be the first of the surgical breast cancer treatment options. This is removal of only the tumor and some surrounding tissue.
If a woman has a lumpectomy, their doctor may remove further lymph nodes from under the arm to do a biopsy. This procedure is called a lymph node dissection.
Mastectomy
If cancer is present in the entire breast or if there is a high risk of recurrence, a mastectomy may be the best course of action.
This is a removal of the entire breast and the lymph nodes under the arm. A radical mastectomy would include the removal of the lining over the chest muscles or even some of the chest wall muscles.
A mastectomy is the most extreme of the breast cancer treatment options, but can be a necessary one.
It is an understandably traumatic and emotional experience for the patient, and it is important to talk at length with your doctor before moving forward with this treatment option.
Radiation & Chemotherapy
After surgery, radiation or chemotherapy may be required breast cancer treatment options. One or both of these treatments may be used to kill off any remaining cancer cells and cut down the chances of a relapse.
Radiation therapy uses localized high-power radiation to destroy the cells. Chemotherapy uses a drug cocktail that is usually either injected or taken orally to kill cancer cells.
Hormone Therapy
Depending on the stage and type of cancer, or depending on whether you have had surgery to remove cancer, different hormone therapies may be used as breast cancer treatment options.
Hormone therapy prevents the body from producing hormones that feed the cancer and helps stop cancer from growing.
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CancerInfoTips.com :: Breast Cancer Treatment Options