Sunday, March 27, 2011

Stage 1 Breast Cancer Treatment Options

Stage 1 of the breast cancer is very initial stage of cancer. Breast cancer is a complicated and fatal disease but if it is diagnose in early stage so its treatment is not as much difficult as in advance stage. At this stage cancer hasn't reached  beyond the breast at all. So there is various options of treatment at this stag. At this stage Women mostly do well with a combination of treatments.These combination includes the following options.



Following are the treatment options of stage 1 breast cancer

Surgical procedure: Breast cancer surgery may be in the form of lumpectomy, partial mastectomy, segment mastectomy, quadrantectomy or mastectomy. Since the tumor is still small, so lumpectomy is better. In this procedure tumor and some of the damage tissues are removed. In some cases mastectomy is used , in which the whole breast is removed.In case of simple mastectomy, only the breast is removed and the lymph nodes are not explored.

Radiation therapy(Radio therapy):
Radiation therapy is a grade of cancer treatment that account high levels of radiation to kill cancer cells or keep them from growing and dividing  while minimizing damage to healthy cells.Radiation therapy  also called radiotherapy.In this stage radiation therapy involves using a large machine called a linear accelerator to deliver precise amounts of high-energy radiation.The radiotherapy stops the regeneration  of cancer cells and  minimizing damage to healthy tissues.

Chemotherapy:In cancer treatment chemotherapy commit to the use of chemicals to kill or slow the growth of briskly multiplying cells like cancer cells.

At this stage chemotherapy can be used for three chief purposes:

Adjuvant therapy (The aim of is therapy prevent or postpone cancer from coming back after the initial surgery and radiation).

Neo-adjuvant therapy (often the cancer in the breast is so big that compress it first with chemotherapy may make it easier to do surgery.This therapy helps in reducing the size of the cancer).

for the  treatment of metastatic disease (If the cancer appears  in parts of the body other than the breast and lymph glands under the arm, it is called metastatic disease. Chemotherapy can be one of the main ways to kill cancer cells that have spread to other parts of the body.

Hormonal Therapy:

Hormonal therapy is a cancer treatment that abolishes hormones or blocks their action and stops cancer cells from building. Hormones are substances produced by glands in the body and circulated in the bloodstream.About two-thirds of women with breast cancer have tumors that contain estrogen receptors called ER-positive.


Few hormonal therapies for stage 1


Tamoxifen(In this therapy a pill named tamoxifen is use.Tamoxifen can be used in women of any age.Long-term use of this anti-estrogen drug has been found to reduce the chance of breast cancer re occurrence).

Aromatase Inhibitors(In this therapy aromatase inhibitors are use.Aromatase inhibitors are very  effective in treating breast cancer  both in early stage and advanced disease).

Biological Therapy :

Biological therapy for breast cancer takes benefit of the body's own immune or hormonal system to act on cancer cells  while leaving healthy cells relatively intact.One strategy is to use antibodies to attack cancer cells or block their activities. An antibody is a protein that can attach to specific proteins in the body, called antigens. Antibodies can be natural or made artificially as well.

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