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Breast Cancer Treatment
Diagnosing Breast Cancer, Treatment of Breast Cancer
1. Facts About Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in American women, according to the American Cancer Society.
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This year, nearly 213,000 women and 1,700 men will learn they have breast cancer.
- Another 62,000 women will learn they have noninvasive (also called in situ) breast cancer.
- Nearly 41,000 women and 500 men will die from breast cancer this year.
- Breast cancer can often be cured. About 80 percent of all patients with breast cancer are free of the disease 10 years after their diagnosis.
2. Risk Factors for Breast Cancer
Many women who develop breast cancer do not have known risk factors. Factors that may increase the risk of developing the disease include:
- Age is the biggest risk factor. More than 75 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer are over age 50.
- Family history of breast cancer
- Increased estrogen exposure due to not having children or delayed first childbirth, early menarche (the first menstrual period), late menopause, or hormone replacement therapy
- Environmental factors
- Dietary factors
Being physically active, maintaining a healthy weight, breast feeding and limiting alcohol intake may lower your risk for developing breast cancer.
3. Breast Cancer Screening
Many breast tumors are found by a breast X-ray study called a mammogram. At age 40, women should begin having regular mammograms. If you have a family history of the disease or other risk factors, ask your healthcare provider about earlier screening.
4. What are Symptoms of Breast Cancer?
- If you notice a lump in the breast or underarm, have it checked by a doctor.
- Breast swelling, skin discoloration, dimpling of the skin or nipple discharge should also be checked.
- In addition to a mammogram, your doctor may also recommend ultrasound or MRI scans.
- In some cases, a biopsy to see if you have breast cancer will be done if your mammogram is abnormal or you have a lump. Sometimes a small needle will be used to remove tissue from the lump and look at it under a microscope. Sometimes it is better to have a surgeon remove the entire lump to be sure about the diagnosis.
5. Treating Breast Cancer
The main treatment for breast cancer is surgery. This is often followed by radiation therapy. Some patients will also need chemotherapy and/or hormone blocking therapy.
- Breast conserving surgery, or lumpectomy, is surgical removal of only the cancerous tissue within the breast. This operation is usually followed by radiation.
- Mastectomy is surgical removal of the entire breast and is sometimes followed by radiation.
- Both surgeries may be done in combination with tests that check the lymph nodes near the breast for cancer.
- Radiation therapy involves a radiation oncologist delivering high energy radiation beams to the breast to destroy cancer cells. Radiation therapy works within cancer cells to make them unable to multiply. When these cells die, the body naturally eliminates them. Healthy tissue is able to repair itself in a way cancer cells cannot.
- Chemotherapy is medication prescribed by a medical oncologist to destroy cancer cells that may have traveled elsewhere in the body.
- Hormonal therapy is medication prescribed by a medical oncologist to block the effects of hormones that may be helping your tumor grow.
6. External Beam Radiation Therapy
Painless radiation treatments are delivered in a series of sessions Monday through Friday, for five to eight weeks. Each treatment lasts less than 30 minutes.
- The usual course of radiation treats only the breast, although you may need to have nearby lymph node areas treated also.
- 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) allows for precise shaping of the radiation beam to better target the breast and spare surrounding normal tissue.
Side effects can include fatigue, skin irritation similar to a moderate sunburn, and mild to moderate breast swelling. These changes are temporary and can be treated by skin creams and/or medications. Tell your radiation oncologist or nurse about any discomfort you may feel.
7. Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation
External beam radiation therapy delivered to the entire breast over several weeks is the standard of care. In national clinical trials, doctors are studying if accelerated partial breast irradiation (or APBI) — where radiation is delivered over 5 days to only the part of the breast where the tumor was removed — works as well. These techniques are only available in a few clinics and are only appropriate for a select group of patients.
- Breast brachytherapy involves placing flexible plastic tubes called catheters or a balloon into the breast. Twice a day for five days, the catheters or the balloon are connected to a brachytherapy machine, also called a high dose rate afterloader. Your radiation oncologist then directs a special computer to guide a small, radioactive seed into the breast tissue near where the tumor was removed. The radiation is left in place for several minutes and then removed. Although the catheters or balloon stay in place for the entire 5 days, the radioactive seeds are only inserted briefly for each treatment session.
- 3-D conformal partial breast irradiation refers to the technique of treating only part of the breast with external beam radiation.
- Intra-operative radiation therapy (IORT) refers to the technique of treating only part of the breast with radiation in the operating room at the time of breast surgery.
The long-term results of these techniques are still being studied. Talk with your radiation oncologist for more information.
8. Radiation Therapy After Mastectomy
After a mastectomy, your doctor may suggest radiation therapy for the chest wall or reconstructed breast and nearby lymph node areas.
- Whether or not radiation therapy should be used after removal of the entire breast depends on several factors. These factors include whether the lymph nodes were involved, tumor size, and whether or not cancer cells were found near the edge of the tissue that was removed.
9. Breast Cancer Resources
Revlon/UCLA Breast Center
The mission of the UCLA Breast Center is to bring the most comprehensive and compassionate care to our patients and to develop future medicine to end the suffering of women with breast cancer. Revlon/UCLA Breast Center »
Breast Cancer Definition, Causes, Incidence, and Risk factors
Breast cancer is a cancer that starts in the tissues of the breast. There are two main types of breast cancer:
Ductal carcinoma starts in the tubes that move milk from the breast to the nipple and Lobular carcinoma starts in parts of the breast, called lobules, that produce milk. More about breast cancer on UCLA Health System »
10. Clinical Trials
The radiation oncology team is always exploring new ways to improve treatment for cancer patients through studies called clinical trials. Today’s radiation treatments are the result of clinical trials completed years ago proving that radiation therapy kills cancer cells and is safe long-term. For more information on current clinical trials, please visit:
- National Cancer Institute www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials
- Radiation Therapy Answers http://www.rtanswers.org/resources/clinicaltrials.aspx
- Radiation Therapy Oncology Group www.rtog.org
