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Early symptoms of breast cancer

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Breast Cancer Treatment - The Unpleasant Truth Behind Getting A Treatment For Breast Cancer

When you have been diagnosed with breast cancer, you wonder what treatment options are available and how they work. First of all, there are many different factors that play a role so that treatment varies from person to person. What stage does the tumor have, the persons age and menopausal status are just a few of the factors that have influence on the treatment decision.

A good friend of mine has just successfully completed her treatment therapy but you can never know how long the success will last. You may have to live with the fear for the rest of your life that the cancer will come back one day. There is no certainty.

The treatment she went under started with a lumpectomy. This simply means that the tumor was removed by surgery. In the next step the lymph nodes close to the tumor were removed. This has to be done because the tumor often likes to spread to the lymph nodes or already has done so. Removing the nodes reduces the risk of a new cancer.

After this surgery the chemotherapy had started. She had more than ten weeks of chemotherapy and thereafter she got radiation therapy. The chemo can take much longer depending n the success. Another friend had the chemo for almost nine months.

If you go with the traditional treatment options for breast cancer you will always have a procedure like that, no matter what type of breast cancer was detected in you. There usually will be a surgery followed by chemo and radiation.

This sounds like a pretty long therapy but the doctors want to make sure that every cancer cell has been destroyed. Unfortunately this treatment has also some serious side effects. In addition, you may also have to take drugs after the treatment for several weeks, like Tamoxifen.

Sometimes a mastectomy is necessary, that means a total or partial removal of the breast. You have the choice to have a reconstruction surgery after that or not, it is your choice and does not have impact on your breast cancer.

Highly Recommended Reading:

Breast Cancer Treatments

Signs And Symptoms Of Breast Cancer

Roselyn Capen is an expert author on breast cancer topics. Her articles about breast cancer symptoms, causes and treatments have been published on numerous web sites, forums, blogs and ezines all over the Internet.

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How to check yourself for breast cancer

http://www.videojug.com - Early detection is the best defence against breast cancer. We show how to conduct a breast self-examination to protect yourself. http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-become-breast-self-aware

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roselyncapen

About roselyncapen

The stage of breast cancer when cancer cells do not remain in the original cancer site and spread out to other parts of the body is called metastatic breast cancer. This is the stage when the cancer is fully advanced. Even if you have been successfully treated for breast cancer, there is a chance that some cancer cells do not die, and later spread out through blood and lymphatic vessels to other body organs. This process is known as metastasis of breast cancer.

Metastatic breast cancer can either recur, that is, the treatment for breast cancer may have completed, but the cancer cells that escaped from being killed make the cancer recur, or may happen during the course of treatment, when the cancer is so aggressive that it spreads out despite of the treatments, or, in some cases when diagnosis is very late, and the cancer has spread out, metastatic might be the very first diagnosis.

Metastasis usually occurs in bones, and organs like lungs and brains. Unfortunately, breast cancer has the highest chance of metastasizing. If you have had breast cancer, and later develop another form of cancer, in all probability, it is breast cancer recurring. The fortunate side of this is that breast cancer is very much treatable. However, if you develop breast cancer again in the breast that was not diseased earlier, it might just be a new cancer.

Another important piece of information is that three out of ten breast cancer patients later develop metastatic breast cancer. If no organ of yours has been affected by the metastatic disease, if cancer cells regress somewhat after treatment for metastatic cancer and if your cancer cells have the female estrogen and progesterone hormones, your cancer has a higher chance of being treated.

Metastatic breast cancer, owing to its nature, requires extensive treatment. Therapies like chemotherapy, hormonal treatment, immune therapy alone with regular mammograms, ultrasounds, CT scans, MRIs, bone scans etc. are necessary. The treatments can be purpose-specific. For treating the whole body, systemic therapies have to be implemented; for treatment of specific organs, local treatments like mastectomy and lumpectomy are done, and for alleviating pain, therapies along with oral aspirin intake are adopted.

Metastatic breast cancer is the worst phase of your cancer, and you should know that scientists are working day and night to invent better methods for prolonging and normalizing your life. Because the prognosis is not usually determined, you have to decide when to end your treatment. Ending treating is necessary because a longer treatment comes with more and more side-effects. Consult as many people as you want, never hesitate to ask your doctor any question, any number of times, but in the end, it all comes down to you to make the decision.

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