Therapy for Breast Cancer

The mainstay 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. Depending on clinical criteria (age, type of cancer, size, metastasis) patients are roughly divided to high risk and low risk cases which follow different rules for therapy. Treatment possibilities include Radiation Therapy, Chemotherapy, Hormone Therapy, and Immune Therapy.

Radio Therapy
Chemo Therapy
Harmone Therapy

Complementory and alternative methods

Complementary and alternative therapies are a diverse group of health care practices, systems, and products that are not part of usual medical treatment. They may include products such as vitamins, herbs, or dietary supplements, or procedures such as acupuncture, massage, and a host of other types of treatment. There is a great deal of interest today in complementary and alternative treatments for cancer. Many are now being studied to find out if they are truly helpful to people with cancer.

You may hear about different treatments from family, friends, and others, which may be offered as a way to treat your cancer or to help you feel better. Some of these treatments are harmless in certain situations, while others have been shown to cause harm. Most of them are of unproven benefit.

The American Cancer Society defines complementary medicine or methods as those that are used along with regular medical care. If these treatments are carefully managed, they may add to your comfort and well-being. Alternative medicines are defined as those that are used instead of your regular medical care. Some of them have been proven not to be useful or even to be harmful, but are still promoted as “cures.” If you choose to use these alternatives, they may reduce your chance of fighting your cancer by delaying, replacing, or interfering with regular cancer treatment

High Dose Chemotherapy with Autologous Bone Marrow or Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Support

Although it is possible to use very high doses of chemotherapy or radiation to kill cancer cells, such treatments also kill blood-producing stem cells in the bone marrow. Damage to bone marrow stem cells lowers the white blood cell count, which makes the patient very vulnerable to potentially fatal infections and bleeding.

One way to get around this is to remove some of the patient's stem cells from either the peripheral (circulating) blood or bone marrow and then return them into a vein after high dose chemotherapy. The stem cells are able to find the bone marrow and soon re-establish themselves and restore the body's ability to produce blood cells.

It was thought that this would be a good way to treat women whose breast cancer was diagnosed at an advanced stage, for example, if they had many lymph nodes involved. Several studies evaluating this treatment have showed no benefit. Women who received the high-dose chemotherapy did not live any longer than women who received standard dose chemotherapy without stem cell support.

High-dose chemotherapy with stem cell support also causes more serious side effects than standard dose chemotherapy. Research in this area is still being conducted. Recent studies found that in certain women whose cancer had spread to many lymph nodes, high-dose chemotherapy did not lower the death rate. Although newer studies may show a drop in death rate, it will likely be very small. And the toxicity from this treatment is very high. Experts in the field now recommend that women not receive high-dose chemotherapy except as part of a clinical trial

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