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What are the Types of Breast Cancer Treatment ?
Some treatments remove or destroy the disease within the breast and nearby tissues, such as lymph nodes. These include: Surgery. For most people, the first step is to take out the tumor. An operation called lumpectomy removes only the part of your breast that has cancer. It’s sometimes called breast-conserving surgery. In a mastectomy, doctors remove the whole breast. There are different types of mastectomies and lumpectomies.
Radiation Therapy
This treatment uses high-energy waves to kill cancer cells. Most women under age 70 who have a lumpectomy get radiation, too. Doctors also might recommend this method if the disease has spread. It helps destroy any cancer cells that the surgeon couldn’t remove. Radiation can come from a machine outside your body, or you might have tiny seeds that give off radiation placed inside your breast where the tumor was. Other treatments destroy or control cancer cells all over your body:
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill cancer cells. You take the medicines as pills or through an IV. Most people get it after surgery to kill any cancer cells left behind. Doctors also prescribe it before surgery to make tumors smaller. Chemo works well against cancer, but it also can harm healthy cells. Chemo can be used as the main treatment for women whose cancer has spread outside the breast and underarm area to distant organs like the liver or lungs. Chemo can be given either when breast cancer is diagnosed or after initial treatments. The length of treatment depends on how well the chemo is working and how well you tolerate it.
Radiation Therapy
Hormone therapy uses drugs to prevent hormones, especially estrogen, from fueling the growth of breast cancer cells. Medicines include tamoxifen (Nolvadex) for women before and after menopause and aromatase inhibitors including anastrozole (Arimidex), exemestane (Aromasin), and letrozole (Femara) for postmenopausal women. Some types of this therapy work by stopping the ovaries from making hormones, either through surgery or medication. Fulvestrant (Faslodex) is an injection that keeps estrogen from attaching to cancer cells.
Targeted Therapy
Targeted therapy such as fam-trastuzumab-deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu), lapatinib (Tykerb), pertuzumab (Perjeta), and trastuzumab (Herceptin) trigger your body’s immune system to help destroy cancer cells. These medicines target breast cancer cells that have high levels of a protein called HER2. T-DM1, or ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla), is a medicine that combines Herceptin and the chemotherapy medicine emtansine to target HER2-positive cancer cells. Abemaciclib (Verzenio), palbociclib (Ibrance), and ribociclib (Kisqali) are often used with an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant (Faslodex), in women with certain types of advanced cancer. Abemaciclib (Verzenio) can be used alone in women who have already been treated with hormone therapy and chemotherapy.
Alpelisib (Piqray) is a PI3K inhibitor that treats breast cancer in men and women who have a certain gene change resulting from treatment with hormonal therapy. Neratinib (Nerlynx) also works against HER2-positive breast cancer by blocking the cancer cells from getting growth signals. A new class of drugs called PARP (poly ADP ribose polymerase) inhibitors targets an enzyme that feeds cancer cells. PARP inhibitors include olaparib (Lynparza) and talazoparib (Talzenna).
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy uses your own immune system to target cancer. The drugs atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy) have been approved to treat triple-negative breast cancer that has spread. You might get chemotherapy, hormone therapy, or targeted therapy along with surgery or radiation. They can kill any cancer cells that were left behind by other treatments.
Side Effects of Treatment
Most breast cancer treatments have side effects. Many go away when the therapy stops. Some may show up later. Common side effects include:
•Nausea•Weight gain or loss
• Fatigue
•Arm swelling
•Hair loss
• Skin or nail changes
• Mouth sores
•Symptoms of menopause , such as hot flashes
•Trouble getting pregnant
•Depression
•Trouble thinking clearly ("chemo brain")
Can a healthy diet prevent breast cancer?
Eating a healthy diet might decrease your risk of some types of cancer, as well as diabetes, heart disease and stroke. For example, women who eat a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil and mixed nuts might have a reduced risk of breast cancer. The Mediterranean diet focuses on mostly on plant-based foods, such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts. People who follow the Mediterranean diet choose healthy fats, such as olive oil, over butter and eat fish instead of red meat. Maintaining a healthy weight also is a key factor in breast cancer prevention.
How to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet:
Ways to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet include the following:
• Drinking fruit or vegetable juice, or eating fruit cocktail with breakfast.• Having a fruit salad, a piece of fruit, or baby carrots instead of potato chips with a sandwich.
• Having vegetable soup or a garden salad with low-fat dressing as an appetizer.
• Stocking up on dried, frozen, and canned fruits and vegetables.
• Setting fruits and vegetables in bowls in the kitchen, making them more visible.
• Having microwaved vegetables with dinner.
• Taking pre-washed cut snacks of fruit and vegetables with you to work or shopping.
Clinical Breast Exam
Detecting breast cancer earlier
Breast cancer can’t usually be prevented, but you can take three important steps to help detect it earlier. The free resource, 3 Steps to Early Detection, can increase your chance of finding breast cancer before it spreads.
What’s The Difference Between A Breast Self-Exam And A Clinical Breast Exam?
A clinical breast exam is performed by a healthcare professional who is trained to recognize many different types of abnormalities and warning signs. This in-office exam will most likely be completed by your family physician or gynecologist at your annual exam, whereas your breast self-exam is something every woman should do at once at month at home.
A Visual Check Of Skin And Tissue
During a clinical breast exam, your healthcare provider checks your breasts’ appearance. You may be asked to raise your arms over your head, let them hang by your sides, or press your hands against your hips. These postures allow your healthcare provider to look for differences in size or shape between your breasts. The skin covering your breasts is checked for any rash, dimpling, or other abnormal signs. Your nipples may be checked to see if fluid is expressed when lightly squeezed.
A Manual Check for Unusual Texture or Lumps
Using the pads of the fingers, your healthcare provider checks your entire breast, underarm, and collarbone area for any lumps or abnormalities. It is worth noting that some women have breast tissue that appears to be full of tiny fibrous bumps or ridges throughout the breast tissue, known as fibrocystic breasts. Overall lumpy tissue is something your provider will want to note but is unrelated to cancer.
A suspicious lump –the type your physician is checking for– is generally about the size of a pea before anyone can feel it in the breast tissue. The manual exam is done on one side and then the other. Your healthcare provider will also check the lymph nodes near the breast to see if they are enlarged.
An Assessment of Any Suspicious Area
If a lump is discovered, your healthcare provider will note its size, shape, and texture. He or she will also check to see if the lump moves easily. Benign lumps often feel different from cancerous ones, but any lump found will likely need to be examined with further diagnostic measures.
It may be helpful to know that lumps that appear soft, smooth, round, and movable are likely to be either benign tumors or cysts. A lump that is hard and oddly-shaped and feels firmly attached within the breast is more likely to be cancer, but further tests are needed to diagnose the problem.
An Assessment of Any Suspicious Area
Clinical Breast exams are an important part of early detection. Although most lumps are discovered through breast self-exams, an experienced professional may notice a suspicious place that fails to register as a warning in the patient’s mind.