Breast Cancer Chemo Before Surgery

Below is a list of the various stages of breast cancer and what might be expected.

Breast cancer chemo before surgery. A study suggests that giving both chemotherapy and radiation therapy before surgery to remove locally advanced breast cancer can help reduce the risk of the cancer coming back in the breast area locoregional recurrence in the 5 years after surgery. Today doctors use many different combinations and it s not clear that any single combination is clearly the best. There are certain breast cancer situations where treatment is routinely given before surgery. The size of a tumor matters when considering neoadjuvant therapy.

Chemotherapy before surgery for early breast cancer. This can cause side effects such as hair loss mouth sores. Chemotherapy is sometimes given before surgery neoadjuvant therapy to shrink larger tumors. Enable the surgeon to remove only the tumor rather than the entire breast.

Success for certain cancer types. Chemotherapy drugs used for breast cancer. That treatment could be chemotherapy or it could be endocrine therapy. Chemotherapy can be given before surgery neoadjuvant or after surgery adjuvant.

Doctors also prescribe it before surgery to make tumors smaller. From the webmd archives. The results were presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the american society for radiation oncology astro. Only certain tumors qualify.

Should you have chemotherapy before surgery for breast cancer. Early stage breast cancer stage i stage iia and iib stage iii. However if the tumor is at an advanced stage chemo may be used to reduce the size before removing it. April 18 2007 getting chemotherapy before breast cancer surgery may help some patients avoid mastectomy according to a new research review.

Allow the surgeon the best chance of removing the tumor completely. Chemo works well against cancer but it also can harm healthy cells. In most cases chemo is most effective when combinations of drugs are used. The most common reason to use neoadjuvant therapy is breast conservation.

Chemotherapy before surgery increases likelihood of lumpectomy. The main goal of pre operative neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer is to shrink tumors so women can have a lumpectomy rather than a more invasive mastectomy.