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Breast cancer

Description

An in-depth report on the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of breast cancer.

Alternative Names

Mammograms; Mastectomy

Medications

The most important advances in the cure of breast cancer have come through the use of drug therapy, also called systemic therapy. Surgery and radiation therapy are effective for treating tumors confined to the breast but not for cancer cells that have spread. In such cases, drug therapy is needed. Drugs work systemically. That is, they kill cancer cells throughout the body rather than just in the breast or nearby tissue.

Drugs Used for Breast Cancer

Systemic treatments for breast cancer include the following:

• Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy drugs are called cytotoxic drugs. They are given orally or by injection and kill cancer cells throughout the body. Chemotherapy plays a role in a very wide range of breast cancer cases.
• Hormone Therapy. The goal of hormone therapy is to prevent estrogen from stimulating breast cancer cells. It is now recommended for women of any age whose breast cancers are hormone-receptor positive (either estrogen or progesterone), regardless of the size of the tumor and whether or not it has spread to the lymph nodes.

Considerations for Drug Therapies

Drug therapy, either hormonal drugs or chemotherapies, may be used as follows:

• As primary therapy for patients for whom surgery or radiation therapy is not appropriate.
• With surgery, radiation, or both. Adjuvant therapy (chemotherapy after surgery or radiation) is particularly beneficial for women who have microscopic evidence of the spread of cancer at the time of diagnosis. The use of drug therapy is designed to kill these residual breast cancer cells before they have a chance to become clinically evident.
• Prior to local treatments (neoadjuvant therapy). The goal in such cases is usually to shrink locally advanced tumors (Stage III) to a size small enough for surgical or radiological therapy.

For metastatic cancer, drugs are used not to cure but to improve quality of life and possibly prolong survival.

• Review Date: 4/3/2007
• Reviewed By: Editorial Team: Greg Juhn, M.T.P.W., David R. Eltz, Kelli A. Stacy. Previously reviewed by Harvey Simon, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital (10/2/2006).

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