Tuesday, August 5, 2008

What Are The Treatments For Breast Cancer

By Roselyn Capen

There are several options for treatments, when the disease is breast cancer. People, today, can choose from the many options available, to defeat breast cancer, unlike several years ago. There are at least three types of treatments for any stage of breast cancer.

Certain forms of surgeries, like biopsies, are used to diagnose breast cancer. These focus on specific areas of the body, like the breasts and lymph nodes, and not the whole body. When cancer is positively diagnosed, the patient has two options. Either she can opt for complete removal of breasts, as is the case with mastectomy, or removal of just a part of the breast, like in partial mastectomy. These two surgeries are most effective when the patient has small malignant tumors. Also, they are effective when the patient has had large tumors previously which are now small and have been successfully shrunken by chemotherapy.

Systemic therapy is good in order to get rid of any cells that may have spread to other parts of the body. If the cancer has spread and has formed tumors elsewhere this treatment can help shrink the cancer and hopefully lead to a remission, which would be ideal for everyone.

This treatment is mainly decided by the characteristics of the cancer. The more aggressive the caner is then it will have a higher risk of spreading outside that area and into other areas where treatment can be harder to do. Treatments are dependent on the status and harmful effects of cancer. The more advanced the stage, the harder it is to treat it, since it's more likely that the cancerous cells are not confined to just the breasts, then. This means the treatment has to extend outside the breasts, and can make the procedure complicated and tiresome.

Therapies are taken by either a pill or even sometimes by injection. Chemotherapy can be administered by either way and is used to destroy cancer cells that it finds. Immune therapy is widely unknown and not used as much as the other therapies just because it is new. It works the same way that getting a flu shot works, it makes the body think that something is attacking it, so that it was use its defense systems which are the while blood cells to fight the infection, or whatever the problem may be.

Many people are turning to what is known as Complementary therapy. The principle behind Complementary therapy is that it restores the body's natural health so that the body becomes capable of fighting infections on its own. Complementary therapies include yoga, massages, chiropractic, herbal remedies' intake and acupunction. People who have tried this therapy are more than just satisfied by the results, and they can reaffirm that it makes them feel a lot better while they're surviving the disease. There is absolutely nothing to lose by trying this therapy, only a chance to feel better and healthier.

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