Powered by Max Banner Ads 

My mum is having breast cancer surgery in an hour and I feel like I don’t know enough about it all?

My mum is 58 and went for routine breast screening where something showed up. She went for various tests then we were told it is breast cancer. She is having an operation at 11.30 this morning to remove the cancer in her breast using the guidewire procedure and also having lymph nodes under her arm removed. We know she’ll be having radiotherapy at some point. Other than that that’s all we know. Does it sound like the prognosis is good? What can we expect next by way of treatment and how my mum will be physically?

The prognosis for breast cancer depends on the type and stage of cancer. Over 80% of stage I patients are cured by current therapies. Stage II patients survive over-all about 70% of the time, those with more extensive lymph nodal involvement doing worse than those with disease confined to the breast. About 40% of stage III patients survive five years, and about 20% of stage IV patients do so.

Again depending of the stage of the disease Chemotherapy and Radiationtherapy will be given. It also depend on the same factor about the medicine and dosage of the above therapies.

Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are all utilized in the treatment of breast cancer. Depending on the stage, they will be used in different combinations or sequences to effect an appropriate strategy for the type and stage of the disease being treated.

SURGERY. Historically, surgical removal of the entire breast and axillary contents along with the muscles down to the chest wall was performed as the lone therapy, (radical mastectomy). In the last twenty-five years, as it has been appreciated that breast cancer is often systemic early in its course, the role of surgery is still primary but of less and less magnitude.

Today, surgical treatment is best thought of as a combination of removal of the primary tumor and staging of the axillary lymph nodes. If the whole breast is removed along with the entire axillary contents, but the muscles of the chest wall are not, the modified radical mastectomy has been performed.

You are telling that Lymph nodes will be removed and this causes anxiety about the stage and condition of the patient. The side effect of all the treatments will be horrible and she has to put up with it. Since CANCER IS STILL AND ENIGMA we have to take it as it comes and do our best to give all possible treatments.

In this connection I request you to please read the several blogs I have written in Yahoo 360 – http://360.yahoo.com/jayaramanms… , which will give you a fair idea – Best of luck