Breast cancer: treatment

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. The success of the treatment largely depends on early diagnosis, which is now available for most of the population in developed countries. In the treatment of breast cancer used as a classic conservative and surgical techniques and innovative treatments that may allow you to win a complete victory over cancer.

• THE STAGES OF TREATMENT
• PROGNOSTIC FACTORS
• CONTRALATERAL DISEASE
• HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY
• PLASTIC BREAST
• TREATMENT OF BREAST CANCER WITH LIGHT
• FOLLOW UP

The stages of treatment

The stages of treatment for suspected breast cancer include confirming the diagnosis, assessing disease stage, and the choice of therapy. When you remove the tumor tissue by surgery is mandatory is determined by the concentration of estrogen receptors (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR).

Prognostic factors

In breast cancer in naechste treatment typically consider various combinations of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and hormonal therapy.

The prognosis and choice of therapy is affected by:

Although certain and rather rare inherited mutations such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, predispose to breast cancer, data on women carriers of these mutations and development of breast cancer is contradictory.

Since criteria for menopausal status is quite vague, in many studies the concept of the postmenopausal women was replaced by the age of 50 years. Breast cancer has many histological forms, and form tumors has great prognostic value. For example, histological forms with favorable prognosis include mucinous, medullary, and tubular carcinoma.

Contralateral disease

Breast cancer can be multicentric and bilateral. Bilateral form is somewhat more common in patients with invasive lobular carcinoma. In patients with breast cancer in the diagnosis is always performed bilateral mammography to exclude bilateral (synchronous) cancer.

There is a huge value of MRT, which helps to identify a large number of cases mammographically undiagnosed illness. Selective use of MRI for further examination is very common, despite the lack of data from randomized controlled trials. However, since only 25% positive results according to the results of the MRI are malignant tumors, it is recommended histological confirmation of the diagnosis.

Hormone replacement therapy

The use of hormone replacement replacement therapy may be an alternative for patients who survived after treatment of breast cancer, many of which have premature menopause as a result of this therapy. Previously, hormone replacement therapy with estrogen is generally not used in women with breast cancer history, because estrogen can play a role as growth factor for cancer cells; empirical data on the safety of estrogen therapy after undergoing breast cancer are extremely limited.

Plastic breast

Plastic breast widely used after a mastectomy (removal of breast). For patients who made a full mastectomy, reconstructive surgery may be used as at the time of mastectomy (immediate reconstruction) or after (delayed reconstruction).

Breast contour can be restored using axillary implant filled with saline solution, which attaches to the bottom of the pectoral muscle. To achieve a cosmetic effect uses a special tissue expander, in which is injected saline solution, stretching fabric over a certain period (weeks and months) to achieve the desired effect.

Next, a tissue expander is changed to a permanent implant. There are much more complex technology of prosthetics, which may require blood transfusion.

Plastic surgery breast cancer patient undergoing radiotherapy (radiation to the chest and regional lymph nodes) as adjuvant therapy or when recurrence of the disease.

However, radiation therapy after breast reconstruction can spoil the cosmetic effect, and in addition,may have such undesirable consequences as the occurrence of unpleasant sensations in the breast, pain, fibrosis, and may even necessitate removal of the prosthesis.

Treatment of breast cancer with light

In the treatment of breast cancer is currently used many innovative techniques. We already wrote about how with the help of immunotherapy in the United States completely cured the woman with breast cancer stage 4, which, of course, is a landmark phenomenon in modern medicine. Another innovative method of treatment of metastatic breast cancer therapy.

The author of the innovative development of the doctor of medical Sciences Nalinikanta Kotagiri, research associate, cancer Center in Ohio, associate Professor of Pharmaceutical school James Winkle. Kotagiri offers to treat cancer of the breast is a modified photodynamic therapy. The patient administered a medicinal substance which is sensitive to light of a certain wave. After a cancerous tumor is irradiated by the light, entered the substance aktiviziruyutsya (by chemical reaction) that lead to the death of cancer cells.

The main mechanism of destruction of cancer cells free oxygen in large quantities is liberated by chemical reaction of a photosensitizing drug with light. At the same time, this method has its drawbacks the release into the blood large amounts of toxic substances, which are formed by the death of cancerous cells, so at the moment the technique is improving, and as the researchers suggest, it will massively use after 5-10 years.

Follow up

There is evidence on the results of randomized clinical trials that follow up scintigraphy, sonography of the liver, chest x-rays and blood tests (biochemical parameters) does not improve survival or quality of life of patients compared with normal clinical examinations.

Even when these studies allow to detect relapse at an earlier period, this does not affect the survival rate of the patient. Based on these data, some researchers recommend that follow-up monitoring was limited to clinical examination and annual mammography for asymptomatic patients who have been treated for tumour of the breast stages I-III.

The frequency of subsequent inspections and the appropriateness of radiology tests after completing treatment for breast tumors stages I-III, remains controversial and unresolved issues.

Authorship: American society for the fight against cancer and
The Us National Cancer Institute

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