Treating Breast Cancer
Written By: Lauren Meadows
With every breast cancer diagnosis comes a detailed, person-specific treatment plan. It is tailored to what will work best for your body and the type of breast cancer.
Treatment types can be broken down into three types:
Local Treatments
Systemic Treatments
Common Treatment Approaches
Local treatments specifically target the tumor area without interfering with the rest of the body, including surgery and radiation. Surgery is a very common form of treatment and depending on the type of cancer, it may be used in conjunction with other forms of treatment.
Systemic treatments include chemotherapy, hormone therapy, targeted drug therapy, and immunotherapy. They can be taken orally or injected and have the ability to reach cancer cells almost anywhere in the body. Once again, the dosage and type of drug treatment available to you depend on the type and stage of the breast cancer. This may also be used in conjunction with other treatment options.
Other factors that are considered when coming up with a treatment plan are, the patient's overall health and wellbeing, menopause status, or pregnancy stage. An example treatment plan for a young female patient diagnosed with Stage I, triple-negative breast cancer is; a mastectomy, followed by 12 weeks of chemotherapy and 2 months of radiation. This is an example of an aggressive approach aimed at preventing recurrence.