How To Cure Breast Cancer

An operation, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy ... There is a whole range of treatment methods if you have received the diagnosis of breast cancer. Below we put several options in a row. You have been told that you have breast cancer . What a piss Your life will be on its head. The coming time will be almost all about the treatment of your illness.

Healing or enlightenment

First of all, the doctor will discuss with you what is your best plan of action. That depends entirely on your personal situation. For example, the type of breast cancer and the extent to which the disease has spread to other parts of your body.

In many patients there is a chance of cure. The purpose of the treatment is then to remove the tumor from the breast and to destroy the remaining cancerous cells.

Unfortunately, not everyone can heal. In that case, treatment should prolong life and maintain the quality of life as well as possible. This happens partly by slowing down the growth of the sowing.

Surgery

In many cases, surgery is the first step in the treatment process. In addition, the surgeon will remove the tumor as completely as possible. If it's possible, he'll try to save your chest. Whether this may depend on the size of your chest and the swelling.

For example, suppose the tumor is very large in relation to your chest, then a breast-rescue operation (a lumpectomy) is not possible. The same applies if you have multiple tumors in your chest. Then a breast stimulation (a mastectomy) is necessary.

The consideration also takes your personal preference. Some women find it a funeral idea to take away their entire chest. Others hope to be able to keep their own breasts. Because amputation is often experienced as a mutilation, many patients later choose a breast structure .

During surgery, the lymph nodes from your armpit are also removed. Through the lymph nodes, malignant cells can spread. Your doctor will check if the glands are "clean" or not. That says a lot about further sowing. Based on this result, he determines how the rest of your treatment should look like.

Radiation

Most women are irradiated at some point. Irradiation means that strong X-rays are directed at the place where the tumor is located. Those rays break the cancer cells. After a chestbreaking surgery you will always have a radiation cavity, but after amputation it may be necessary.

If you have sores in the rest of your body, you get the radiation at the places you are in trouble. Then it's about reducing the complaints (pain), not for cure.

Chemotherapy

In chemotherapy, you get treatment with medicines: cytostatics. These inhibit cell division and destroy the cancer cells in your body. There are all kinds of cytostatics and you can be given them by infusion, injection and tablet.

Usually you get your medication, then take a rest period of a few weeks and then get a chemo again. This will last for a few months to six months.

Many patients are afraid of the serious side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, fatigue and hair loss. For some women, the treatment is indeed very heavy, while others affect the side effects. In any case, there are now good drugs that suppress nausea.

Hormone therapy

Chest gland cells need the hormones estrogen and progesterone to grow. Those hormones are made mainly in the ovaries and adhere to the mammary gland cells on the so-called receptors. Sometimes breast cancer cells also have those receptors. Then estrogen and progesterone cause the tumor to grow harder.

It is therefore important to reduce the production of these hormones. This can be done through special medicines: hormone preparations. Sometimes it is chosen to remove the ovaries. If that happens when you are still menstruating, you will come early in the transition.

Not all breast cancer cells are hormone-sensitive. That means that not everybody is eligible for hormone therapy.

Immunotherapy

Breast cancer can also be treated with the trastuzumab antibody. That antibody strengthens your immune system and attacks the cancerous cells . Trastuzumab adheres to a certain protein (HER2), which is located on the outside of cancerous cells. This ensures that the tumor can not grow anymore.

Not all cancer cells have this protein, so treatment is not suitable for everyone. It is important that a HER2 test is performed immediately upon diagnosis to see if patients are eligible for treatment with the trastuzumab antibody.

New developments

The research on improving breast cancer treatment is not silent. Antibody therapy has only been available in the Netherlands for a number of years and a large number of new treatments are currently being tested in research. An important development in this is that the therapy choice can be better adapted to specific characteristics of the individual patient's tumor. Examples of these are the hormone therapy directed against ER / PR receptor and antibody therapy directed against the HER2 protein. Another new therapy group is that of the angiogenesis inhibitors.