Breast cancer is treated both locally (with surgery and radiation) and systemically (hormone therapies, chemotherapy, and targeted therapies).
Local treatment
Local treatment means surgery and/or radiation. You can have a lumpectomy, which removes only the tumour and leaves the healthy part of the breast, or a mastectomy, which removes the whole breast. Your doctor may also remove your lymph nodes, which are under the arm, to make sure there is no cancer there. If you have a mastectomy, you might also decide to have your breast(s) reconstructed. If you have a lumpectomy, you will usually need radiation too.
Systemic treatment
Systemic treatments travel through the bloodstream to attack any cancer cells that spread beyond the breast. Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill cancer cells. Some breast cancer cells depend on hormones like estrogen or progesterone to grow, so women whose breast cancer tumours need estrogen to grow to take hormone (endocrine) therapy.
Targeted therapy attacks only specific types of cancer cells so that normal cells stay healthy; it is used in women who have HER2 positive breast cancer, among others.
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