If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with breast cancer, you and your cancer care team will determine the type of treatment or combination of treatments that are most appropriate for you.
Breast cancer treatments
There are a wide range of treatments for breast cancer. Most patients are treated with the following:
- Surgery, including lumpectomy or mastectomy:
- Alumpectomy is considered a breast-conserving surgery. Other names for this surgery are breast-sparing surgery, segmental mastectomy, quadrantectomy and partial mastectomy. The goal of the procedure is to remove the cancer and some of the surrounding normal tissue but leave the remainder of the breast intact. Often, the physician will also remove several sentinel lymph nodes from the axilla (arm pit) region during the surgery.
- Amastectomy, on the other hand, removes the entire breast, and, depending on the type of mastectomy performed, other tissues, including muscles and sentinel lymph nodes from your axilla.
Mastectomy types include:
- Simple mastectomy
- Radical mastectomy
- Modified radical mastectomy
- Subcutaneous (nipple-sparing) mastectomy
- Skin-sparing mastectomy
- Chemotherapy is administered prior to surgery to shrink cancer cells or after surgery to prevent cancer cells from returning.
- Hormonal therapy blocks hormones (estrogen and progesterone) in certain types of tumors.
- Targeted therapyuses medications to identify and attack specific cancer cells without harming normal cells.
- Radiation therapy uses high-energy X-rays through either external radiation (sending radiation from outside the body to the cancer) or internal radiation (placing a radioactive substance sealed in needles, seeds or wires directly into or near the cancer).
Types, grades and stages of breast cancer
Breast cancer can be classified by type, grade and stage. If you or a loved one has breast cancer, It is important to know your specific diagnosis so you can better understand your treatment plan.
There are two main types of breast cancer, which differ in their points of origin in the breast.
- Ductal carcinoma is a type of breast cancer that begins in the cells that line the milk ducts in the breast, also called the lining of the breast ducts.
- Lobular carcinoma is a type of breast cancer that begins in the lobes or lobules (the glands that make milk) of the breast.
Breast cancer grades refer to how close the biopsy sample looks to normal breast tissue and how rapidly the cancer cells are dividing. The lower the number, the slower the cancer is growing, making it less likely to spread.
Staging identifies if the cancer has spread within the breast or to other parts of the body.
- Stage 0: In this stage, the cancer has not spread beyond the tumor.
- Stage I, II and III: Of these three stages, Stage I is the smallest in size, least likely to have lymph node involvement and has low-risk molecular features. Stage III, conversely, is the largest and is most likely to have lymph node involvement and/or other high-risk molecular features.
- Stage IV: In this stage, the cancer has spread to other organs of the body, most often the bones, lungs, liver or brain.
Breast cancer is also classified by whether the cancer has the following:
- Estrogen receptors (ER): A protein found inside the cells of the female reproductive tissue, some other types of tissue and some cancer cells. Estrogen may bind to the receptors inside the cells, causing the cells to grow.
- Progesterone receptors (PR): A protein found inside the cells of the female reproductive tissue, some other types of tissue and some cancer cells. Progesterone may bind to the receptors inside the cells, causing the cells to grow.
- HER2/neu: A growth-promoting protein that may cause cancer cells to grow more quickly and spread to other parts of the body.
A breast cancer diagnosis can be confusing and possibly even scary, but you don't have to navigate it alone. At Methodist Healthcare, our cancer care program treats more patients with breast cancer than any other hospital system in the Greater San Antonio area.
Methodist Healthcare is part of Sarah Cannon, the Cancer Institute of HCA Healthcare. If you have questions about breast cancer treatments and classifications, contact askSARAH at (210) 507-0941 to speak to a nurse who is specially trained to help with your cancer questions.
This blog was originally published at SarahCannon.com in 2022. It has been updated for Methodist Healthcare in 2023.
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