There are special anti-cancer treatment programs that can decrease a woman's risk of relapse after surgery. These programs are called adjuvant therapy.
Adjuvant therapy prevents recurrence in many women and saves thousands of lives every year.
The anti-cancer medicines and other special treatments used in adjuvant therapy are the best available today. They can often, but not always, cure people of microscopic cancer seeds. These same medicines cannot cure cancer tumors big enough to be felt or seen with X-rays. The best chance of a cure with these medicines is when there is only a little microscopic cancer. That is why they are used when doctors are not even sure a person has metastases.