Breast
Cancer
Symptoms
A lump or thickening in the
breast or armpit, any flattening or indentation of the breast skin, any
puckering, pitting or dimpling of the breast skin, any change in the
position, size or colour of the breast, clear or bloody nipple discharge,
a retracted nipple, redness of the breast skin are all symptoms.
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Conventional
Treatment
For localized tumors,
mastectomy (removal of the whole breast) may be appropriate, but
breast-conserving surgery (removal of the tumor and some surrounding
tissue, sometimes called lumpectomy) followed by local radiation is often
preferable. Although recurrences are more common with breast-conserving
surgery, these can be treated by mastectomy, and the survival rates are
equivalent to those when mastectomy is used initially. Either procedure
may be followed by additional chemotherapy or hormone-blocking therapy. If
tumor cells have high levels of receptors for the hormones estrogen and
progesterone, it is a good sign because hormone-blocking therapy may stop
their growth.
Under study: High-dose chemotherapy followed by reconstitution of
damaged bone marrow; chemotherapy before surgery; immunotherapy, including
immunotoxins (molecules that combine a toxic agent with an antibody that
binds to tumor cells); new chemotherapies and drug combinations. Tamoxifen, a drug that suppresses the effects of estrogen, may help
prevent breast cancer in some women at high risk.
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