Surgery and radiation therapy
Surgery is usually the first step in treating early breast cancer. You may have a mastectomy (the entire breast is removed) or a lumpectomy (only the tumor and some surrounding tissue are removed). With either type of surgery, some lymph nodes will be removed from the armpit (called axillary nodes) to find out whether the cancer has spread there.
Women who choose lumpectomy will also have radiation therapy to get rid of any cancer cells that may remain. This lowers the chances of the cancer coming back.
Most women who have a mastectomy do not need radiation therapy. In some cases, radiation is used after mastectomy to treat the chest wall and the axillary nodes.
Treatment after surgery (adjuvant therapy, systemic therapy)
Some combination of chemotherapy, hormone therapy and/or targeted therapy, such as trastuzumab (Herceptin), almost always follows surgery (called adjuvant or systemic therapy). These treatments help ensure that the body is completely rid of cancer. It is uncommon to have surgery as the only treatment.
Which treatments you will need after surgery depends on the size of the tumor, the status of the lymph nodes and the characteristics of the tumor. For women, whether you are pre- or postmenopausal can also play a role in treatment choices.
Treatment before surgery (neoadjuvant therapy)
For some women with large tumors, chemotherapy or hormone therapy may be used as the first step before surgery (called neoadjuvant or pre-operative therapy). Neoadjuvant therapy can shrink a large tumor enough so that lumpectomy becomes an option to mastectomy.
For those with HER2/neu-positive breast cancer, trastuzumab (Herceptin) is included in neoadjuvant chemotherapy [66,88].
Learn more about factors that affect treatment options.
Learn more about mastectomy and lumpectomy.
Learn more about radiation therapy.
Learn more about chemotherapy.
Learn more about hormone therapy.
Learn more about trastuzumab (Herceptin).
Learn more about neoadjuvant therapy.
Updated 01/20/12
