Old and New Breast Cancer Cures
Women fear breast cancer. Just hearing the words lumps and cysts send shivers to the spines but a deeper understanding of breast cancer will tell the women of the world that having lumps or cysts does not necessarily mean that you have breast cancer so they should not panic easily. On an even more positive note breast cancer can actually be prevented and breast cancer cures are available and these breast cancer cures are proven to be effective.
Let us now focus on the different breast cancer cures starting off with surgery and this is so because almost all women with breast cancer will have to undergo some type of surgery in the duration of their treatment. The purpose of any surgery is to remove as much cancer as possible and the type of surgery to be undergone by the person is on a case to case basis. There is the breast conservation therapy (BCT) where doctors remove the tumor with a little bit of breast tissue but the entire breast is not removed.
Some patients might have to go through a sentinel lymph node biopsy procedure first to know if a formal lymph node dissection is required. In cases where a larger part of the breast but sill not the whole breast is removed then that is called a segmental or partial mastectomy. Both procedures go with radiation therapy or radiotherapy and that is the use of rays that have high energy like x rays to kill cancer cells. According to oncologists, BCT is as effective as removal of the entire breast via mastectomy as a breast cancer cure during the early stages of cancer.
More advanced breast cancers also require an advanced breast cancer cure like a modified radical mastectomy. Modified radical mastectomy means removing the entire breast and dissecting the lymph nodes under the arm. What is very crucial here is that you should be ale to talk to your surgeon openly because patient and doctor should work together in choosing the surgery that should be imposed so the patient won’t be scared and for the procedure to be successful.
Now on to next and most popular breast cancer cure and that is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is the use of anti cancer drugs that go throughout the entire body. Chemotherapy usually comes after a surgery but in certain advanced stages of cancers chemotherapy is applied to shrink the cancer before it can be removed through any of the surgery discussed earlier. Just like surgery, there are many kinds of chemotherapy. Two of the most common regimens are AC (doxorubicin and cycolphosphamide) that runs for 3 months or CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil) that for 6 months. The chemotherapy before surgery mentioned earlier is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
There are other new breast cancer cures like Hormonal Therapy and Biologic therapy but these breast cancer cures should only be considered after careful consideration and consultation with your oncologist. This is so because these recently developed breast cancer cures only have specific patients that they can cater to and if you are not a candidate then what should be a cure may only worsen your condition.
Apart from these breast cancer cures, people in the field of medicine supported by many groups are continually looking for ways to cure breast cancer. So for all the women out there who have breast cancer, just make sure that you are evaluated properly to get the appropriate breast cancer cure that can save your life.
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