Different Breast Cancer Treatments

If you have breast cancer, treatment is the only option which offers hope for future. Medical advances have made breast cancer treatment as an effective and life saving therapy. There are many factors that can make the treatment effective for you. The main thing is the type and the stage of breast cancer.

There are varieties of treatments and they are divided into two categories. First are local treatments which destroy the cancer cells from one area in the body. Second are systematic treatments which goes beyond the local area and fights against the cancer throughout the body. These treatments can be used alone and also can be used together.

The local treatments are:-

* Radiation: - Radiation follows a mastectomy or lumpectomy. It is used to target the specific area and used to destroy the cells which are left after the surgery. This treatment is a course of five days a week and it is for seven weeks.
* Surgery: - This is used as first local treatment. Its procedures are lumpectomy which removes the lump or tumor only. Lumpectomy is performed when the breast cancer is found early. A tissue around the tumor is usually removed. Mastectomy which consists of removal of the entire breast. It is usually performed when the cancer cells have spread throughout the breast or into other areas of the body.

The systematic treatments help in destroying cancer cells throughout the body. These are:-

* Hormone therapy: - In some types of cancer, hormones help the cancer cells to grow. The main aim of hormone therapy is to keep the hormones from getting to cancer cells. This can be controlled by stopping the estrogen from working and by reducing the amount of estrogen in the body.
* Chemotherapy: - It is just use of drugs to fight against cancer cells. There are many types of chemotherapy which are used and these are given daily, weekly, monthly depending upon the type of cancer.
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If you are suffering from breast cancer, then learn as much as you can about the available treatments which will help in curing the disease.