Breast Cancer Surgery

Breast cancer is cancer that forms in the cells of breasts. Breast cancer is not common in men, with one in 400 men contracting the disease. It is most common in women, with the likelihood of 1 in 28 women in India developing breast cancer during their lifetime. The risk is higher in urban areas, being 1 in 22 women, compared to rural areas where this risk is relatively lower, being 1 in 60 women. In India, the average age of the high-risk group is 43-46 years unlike in the west where women aged 53-57 years are more prone to breast cancer.

The line of treatment for breast cancer is based on the type of breast cancer, its stage and grade, size, and whether the cancer cells are sensitive to hormones. Your overall health and preferences are also accounted for when deciding on the treatment. Your doctor will discuss the best treatment plan with you.

Surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy are the four modalities of treatment of breast cancer.

Symptoms of Breast Cancer

• A breast lump that feels different from the surrounding tissue.
• Change in the size, shape or appearance of a breast.
• Changes to the skin over the breast.
• Changes in skin such as peeling, scaling or flaking of the pigmented area of skin surrounding the nipple or skin of the breast.
• A newly inverted nipple.
• Bloody discharge from the nipple.
• Redness of the skin over your breast.

COMPREHENSIVE TREATMENT PLAN

Lumpectomy (Breast conservation surgery) : In this procedure, the surgeon removes the tumour and a small margin of surrounding healthy tissue. A part of healthy breast tissue around the cancer is removed, and tested for traces of cancer. If no traces are of cancer are found, then there’s less chance that the cancer will reoccur. If cancer cells are found in the surrounding tissue, more tissue may need to be removed from your breast.After breast-conserving surgery, you will usually be offered radiotherapy to destroy any remaining cancer cells.

Mastectomy : In this procedure, the surgeon removes all the breast tissue, including the nipple. To determine whether cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, a sentinel lymph node biopsy may be carried out. The sentinel lymph nodes are the first lymph nodes that the cancer cells reach if they spread.If no cancer is found in those lymph nodes, the chance of finding cancer in any of the remaining lymph nodes is small and no other nodes need to be removed. If cancer is found in the sentinel node, your surgeon will discuss with you the role of removing additional lymph nodes in your armpit

Chemotherapy involves using anti-cancer (cytotoxic) medication to kill the cancer cells. It’s usually given after surgery to destroy any cancer cells that haven’t been removed.In some cases, you may have chemotherapy before surgery, which is often used to shrink a large tumour.

Hormone therapy is used in cases where the breast cancer issensitive to the hormonesoestrogen or progesterone, which are found naturally in your body. These types of cancer are known as hormone-receptor-positive cancers. Hormone therapy works by lowering the levels of hormones in your body or by stopping their effects. Your doctor will suggest the type of hormone therapy depending on the stage and grade of your cancer, which hormone it’s sensitive to, your age, whether you have had menopause and what other type of treatment you’re having. Hormone therapy is given after surgery and chemotherapyto decrease the chance of your cancer returning, but it’s sometimes given before surgery to shrink a tumour, making it easier to remove