The Three Main Factors That Determine What Breast Cancer Treatment You Shoud Follow
Breast cancer is a terrible disease that affects millions of people, both directly and indirectly. It is one of the more common types of cancer in women, which is why regular check-ups are so important, both by yourself and by professionals. If you ever notice any strange lumps or anything out of the ordinary at all in your breasts, then you should book an appointment with your nearest specialist as soon as possible, and if you are over the age of 50, then you should be getting regular mammograms at least every two years. If you do end up having breast cancer at any stage, here are three of the main factors that will determine what breast cancer treatment you get.
Size
Depending on how early you catch the tumors in your breasts, you may avoid surgery altogether. If the tumor is quite clearly growing very quickly, then surgery is often the best route, but even within surgery, there are two options: a lumpectomy, which is a partial removal of breast tissue, and a mastectomy, which is the full removal of a breast. This is often the best chance at completely stopping the cancer from growing and spreading, and there are many cosmetic procedures to help restore your self-confidence after the fact, if you want.
Position
Sometimes the position of your breast cancer tumor can make it difficult to operate, or perhaps other circumstances are giving your doctors pause in that regard. If that is the case, then targeted radiation can be used as your primary form of breast cancer treatment, which aims to break up the very structure of the cancer before it can really take hold. Chemotherapy is also used in cases where the position of the cancer makes surgery difficult, and hormone therapy is increasingly becoming quite popular for breast cancer.
Patients Condition
Sometimes your breast cancer treatment options are determined more by other, more tangential factors than by the cancer itself. For instance, older patients are often too frail to warrant invasive surgery, as it may do more harm to other systems of their body and cause a bigger problem. Sometimes the patient themselves has a preference that might not be directly in line with the medical advice, and this is quite common when it comes to different religious or cultural barriers. Also, whether the patient has gone through menopause can influence what their surgeons think about potential surgery or chemotherapy and hormone treatment. It is a big decision, and one that should not be made lightly, which is why it is good that your medical professionals are so thorough in their diagnosis.