Facts About Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in American women, according to the American Cancer Society.

• This year, 182,000 women and 2,000 men will learn they have breast cancer.
• Another 68,000 women will learn they have noninvasive (also called in situ) breast cancer.
• Breast cancer can often be cured. About 80 percent of all patients with breast cancer live 10 years after their diagnosis.

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.

Surgical Intervention

There are two types of breast cancer surgery. Some women choose to undergo breast-conserving surgery, which is the surgical removal of only the cancerous tissue. This operation is called a lumpectomy and is usually followed by radiation.

A mastectomy, which includes the surgical removal of the breast, is also an option. Both surgeries may be done in combination with tests that check the lymph nodes near the breast for cancer.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is medication prescribed by a medical oncologist to destroy cancer cells that may have spread elsewhere in the body.

Hormonal Therapy

Hormonal therapy is medication prescribed by a medical oncologist to block the effects of hormones that may be helping your tumor grow.

Radiation Therapy

• Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation involves external beam radiation therapy to the whole breast for several weeks after a lumpectomy. This is the standard of care for early-stage breast cancer. In national clinical trials, doctors are studying if accelerated partial breast irradiation (or APBI) — where radiation is delivered to only part of the breast over four to five days — works as well. These techniques are only available in a few clinics and only to 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 is 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. After the end of the five days, the catheters or balloon is removed.

• 3-D conformal partial breast irradiation is a type of external beam radiation therapy where only part of the breast receives external beam radiation.

Radiation After Mastectomy

After a mastectomy, your doctor may suggest radiation therapy for the chest wall and nearby lymph node areas, whether or not radiation therapy should be used after breast removal depends on several factors. These factors include the number of lymph nodes involved, tumor size, and whether or not cancer cells were found near the edge of the tissue that was removed.

Many patients who have a mastectomy can safely skip radiation therapy. Ask your doctor for more information.

Additional Information