What to Know About Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer
The Goal of Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer
Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill cancer cells. It’s a systemic treatment. That means it affects your whole body. The drugs travel all through your body in your bloodstream, killing rapidly dividing cancer cells. Here are some ways chemotherapy works.
- It may disrupt cell growth.
- It may prevent cells from reproducing.
- It may cause your immune system to destroy the “invader.”
Chemotherapy may be able to cure cancer—meaning the tumor disappears and doesn’t return. If a cure isn’t possible, chemotherapy may be able to help keep the cancer from growing or spreading. Or, if the cancer is advanced and can’t be controlled, chemotherapy may help ease symptoms caused by cancer and improve your quality of life.
Making the Decision to Have Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer
Your doctor may suggest chemotherapy to treat breast cancer for any of the following situations.
- Before your surgery or radiation in Stage II or III breast cancer. This is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy. You usually have it for several months. It’s most often used for advanced tumors or inflammatory cancers (i.e. cancers involving skin and multiple lymph nodes). It can also be used to shrink the tumor so that it’s smaller and may allow you to have breast-conserving surgery.
- After surgery in Stage I, II, or III breast cancers. This is called adjuvant chemotherapy. You usually have it for 4 to 6 months. Adjuvant chemotherapy helps prevent the cancer from spreading and coming back. Whether or not your doctor recommends it depends upon the tumor’s size, whether it has spread to lymph nodes, and other features.
- When the breast cancer has spread to other parts of your body (Stage IV). Because chemotherapy is a systemic therapy, it can be used to kill cancer cells that have spread. How long this treatment lasts depends on how much the tumors shrink.