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Types of Cancer > Breast Cancer > Invasive Breast Cancer
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| Treatment of Early Stage Invasive Breast Cancer |
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When invasive breast cancer is caught early enough and the tumor is still small, breast conservation surgery combined with radiation therapy is normally the treatment option of choice. This type of surgery will prevent the patient from having to experience the complete removal of the affected breast, thereby allowing the patient to retain the feminine attributes of her figure. Lumpectomies and partial mastectomies are both surgeries that are involved with breast conservation. Instead of removing the entire breast as with a mastectomy, these procedures involve removing only the tumor, a small portion of the surrounding tissue and, sometimes, the regional lymph nodes if they are affected.
For either of these surgeries to be considered as a viable treatment option for a patient, the tumor that is being removed must be small in size. If the tumor is moderate or large, a doctor may order chemotherapy in order to shrink the tumor down to the required size for breast conservation surgery. If chemotherapy is not successful in shrinking the tumor, a mastectomy may be the only other option.
When treating invasive breast cancer, surgical removal of the tumor will almost always be followed up with radiation therapy in order to destroy any remaining cancer cells. If the tumor was greater than 1 centimeter in size, adjuvant therapy may be recommended in addition to radiation therapy. Adjuvant therapy can be either hormone therapy or chemotherapy. The type of adjuvant therapy a cancer patient receives will be determined by the specifics of that person's breast cancer case. For example, if a woman's cancer was hormone receptor negative, hormone therapy is not likely to be effective and chemotherapy would probably be in order. If a patient is going to receive both chemotherapy and radiation, the radiation treatment will not be started until the chemotherapy has been completed.
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| Author: | Robert Dale, Certified Medical Writer |
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| Reviewer: | Jiade Jay Lu, M.D.
Diplomate, American Board of Radiology (Radiation Oncology) |
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| Publish Date: October 28, 2004 |
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