With technology rapidly advancing these days, it isn’t any wonder why there are new breast cancer treatments available for those suffering from it. New treatment for breast cancer becomes available all the time. However, the type of treatment you choose really depends on the type of breast cancer you have. It doesn’t matter which type of treatment you choose because they all have two main goals when it comes to the treatment of breast cancer; to get rid of all of the cancer from the body as much as possible and to prevent the disease from coming back in the future. Here is more information on the best breast cancer treatments available today.
How Do You Know Which Type Of Treatment Is Right For You?
After seeing your breast cancer doctor, he or she will consider a few things before recommending the best type of treatment for breast cancer. Your breast cancer doctor will first determine the best type of treatment for the type you have. He or she will then determine the size of the tumor and in what stage the breast cancer is in. Then, your doctor will also check to see if the breast cancer you have has features with it called receptors that have things like HER2 protein including progesterone, estrogen, and other features.
Your breast cancer doctor will also go by your age, whether or not you have been or are going through menopause yet, and other health conditions you may be going through at the time. Your doctor will use all of these things to determine the best treatment for breast cancer for you.
Types of Breast Cancer Treatment
Some of the breast cancer treatments available today will either remove or destroy the cancer that is within your breast and along the tissues near them to get rid of the tumor. There are also advanced cancer treatment options available if needed. The different types of treatments for breast cancer include the following:
- Proton therapy for breast cancer is a standard therapy that works by using a type of X-Ray, which is also called proton therapy, to kill the cancer cells in the breast or other places it may have spread. In fact, proton therapy can reduce the radiation dose to the gastrointestinal area of your body by 59 % compared to X-Rays. Although a general proton session takes between 15 and 45 minutes, the actual time spent delivering the protons to the tumors only takes about one or two minutes.
- Surgery to take out the whole breast or both of them is also a good option. One type of surgery is called a mastectomy which removes the whole breasts. However, there is another surgery option called lumpectomy or also known as breast conservation surgery, which just takes out the tumor and the tissues surrounding it.
- Radiation therapy is another option for the treatment of breast cancer and what this type of treatment does is kills cancer cells with high energy waves.
- Chemotherapy treatment uses drugs to kill the cancer cells. However, the medications in this powerful treatment also come with a lot of side effects including hair loss, hot flashes, early menopause, fatigue, and nausea.
- Hormone therapy is another good option for the treatment of breast cancer. In this therapy, they use different drugs to prevent certain hormones, especially estrogen, from allowing the growth of breast cancer. The different medicines for hormone therapy include, for premenopausal women, Tamoxifen, and for those women who already went through menopause, aromatase inhibitors. However, with anything else, there are side effects including hot flashes and vaginal dryness. Some types of hormone therapy usually work by preventing the ovaries from making any more hormones either through surgery or medication.
- Targeted therapy is a therapy that uses medications to make the body’s immune system to destroy cancer cells.
Any of these types of therapies can help along with the radiation or surgery to help get rid of the breast cancer. Not only do they help along with these specific treatments but they get rid of any cancer cells that may have been left behind by the other treatments. Talk to your breast cancer doctor to determine which one is right for your type of breast cancer.
