If the cancer has spread into the lymph nodes, then the standard course of treatment is a mastectomy and removal of the lymph nodes, followed by chemotherapy and radiation therapy, Copeland said. We also now have a skin-sparing mastectomy where we can save the bulk of the native skin. He cautioned that women should be careful when they discuss immediate breast reconstruction because not all are candidates for it, particularly those that are going to require radiation therapy after the surgery, he said. You're better off having a mastectomy, getting radiation therapy, and then at some point in the future, getting reconstructed. Targeted radiation Radiation therapy plays a key role in the treatment of cancer, and a major advance in the use of radiation is the ability to more closely target just the tissue containing cancer cells, thereby minimizing the damage to normal tissues, said Dr. Nancy Mendenhall, professor and chairman of the department of radiation oncology in UF's College of Medicine.
Breast cancers arise from cells that line the milk ducts.
As long as the cancer stays inside the duct, it is called non-invasive, or in situ. As it progresses it becomes more aggressive and breaks through the outer layer of cells that comprise that duct. Once it gets into tissue around the duct, it has become invasive. There have been a number of advances in the use of chemotherapy and hormone therapy that include the development of drugs that not only treat the disease but also act as a preventive. A major advance over the past 20 or 25 years has been the recognition that treatment following surgery can eliminate or retard the development of that systemic disease in a percentage of people.