Treatment breast cancer

The main stay of breast cancer treatment is surgery when the tumor is localized, with possible adjuvant hormonal therapy (with tamoxifen or an aromatase inhibitor, chemotherapy, and/or radiotherapy. At present, the treatment recommendations after surgery (adjuvant therapy) follow a pattern.Other treatments are Hormonal therapy to block certain hormones that fuel cancer growth, Targeted therapy to interfere with cancer cell grow and function.

Surgery

• Lumpectomy. This operation saves as much of your breast as possible by removing only the lump plus a surrounding area of normal tissue. Many women can have lumpectomy often followed by radiation therapy, instead of mastectomy, and in most cases survival rates for both operations are similar
• Partial or segmental mastectomy. Another breast-sparing operation, partial mastectomy involves removing the tumor as well as some of the breast tissue around the tumor and the lining of the chest muscles that lie beneath it. In almost all cases
• Simple mastectomy. During a simple mastectomy, your surgeon removes all your breast tissue the lobules, ducts, fatty tissue and skin, including the nipple and areola
• Modified radical mastectomy. In this procedure, a surgeon removes your entire breast, including the overlying skin, and some underarm lymph nodes (axillary lymph node dissection), but leaves your chest muscles intact.

Radiationtherapy
Radiation therapy uses high-energy X-rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. It's administered by a radiation oncologist at a radiation center. In general, radiation is the standard of care following a lumpectomy for both invasive and noninvasive breast cancers. Oncologists are also likely to recommend radiation following a mastectomy for a large tumor, for inflammatory breast cancer, for cancer that has invaded the chest wall or for cancer that has spread to more than four lymph nodes in your armpit.

Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses drugs to destroy cancer cells. The size of the tumor, characteristics of the cancer cells, and extent of spread of the cancer help determine your need for chemotherapy. Treatment often involves receiving two or more drugs in different combinations. These may be administered intravenously, in pill form or both. You may have between four and eight treatments spread over three to six months.

Hormonetherapy
Hormone therapy perhaps more properly termed hormone blocking therapy is often used to treat women whose cancers are sensitive to hormones estrogen and progesterone receptor positive cancers. Similar to chemotherapyTwo classes of medications are used in hormone therapy: selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) and aromatase inhibitors.

• Selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs)

The most common SERM prescribed for hormone therapy is tamoxifen (Nolvadex). Tamoxifen is used as a treatment for women with hormone-sensitive metastatic breast cancer, as an adjuvant therapy for women with early-stage estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, and as a preventive agent in some high-risk women

• Aromatase inhibitors

This class of drugs, which includes anastrozole (Arimidex), letrozole (Femara) and exemestane (Aromasin), blocks the conversion of a hormonal substance (androstenedione) into estrogen. This effectively stops estrogen production in cells other than the ovaries. Fat cells, the adrenal gland and other normal cells all make small amounts of estrogen

Biological therapy
1. Trastuzumab (Herceptin).
2. Bevacizumab (Avastin)
3. Lapatinib (Tykerb)