Breast Cancer

This is where the surgeon removes more breast tissue than a lumpectomy. The cancerous area and surrounding outskirts of normal tissue are removed, and radiation therapy is given after surgery for six to eight weeks. This treatment also is a less painful procedure and less costly. .
             Now if the cancer cells have moved to spreading through the lymph nodes, then they will be recommended to get chemotherapy. In chemotherapy, the patient takes cancer fighting medications that travel trough the body to slow the growth of cancer cells or even kill them. If no cancer cells are found in the tissue other than the breast, chemotherapy may be given in addition to surgery to reduce the risk that the cancer will come back (Spatt). It also may be used as a primary treatment for women with more advanced cases of breast cancer to reduce the size of the tumor for more convenient surgical removal. In these cases high doses of chemotherapy kill cancer cells, but also kill stem cells, blood-producing cells in the bone marrow (Spatt). Some women in sophisticated stages of breast cancer may undergo chemotherapy followed by a bone-marrow transplant to restore healthy stem cells, although it is not clear whether the method helps prolongs a woman's survival. Long term physical therapy might have to come in later after chemotherapy is done; as well as not the cheapest procedure to conduct.
             Hormone therapy exploits some of the chemicals the body naturally produces. Example; some breast cancer cells thrive on the hormone estrogen, which is produced in the ovaries. Hormone therapy slows the growth of cells by preventing them form using estrogen (Grayson). One of the drugs engaged in hormone therapy is tamoxifen, which can prevent breast cancer in women who carry a mutation of the brca2 gene, which produces tumors that require estrogen to grow. Tamoxifen does not how ever reduce the risk in women who carry the BRCA1 gene, which produces tumors not affected by estrogen.