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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Breast Cancer - Chemotherapy

Breast cancer occurs due to the improper and sudden growth of cells in the ducts present in the breast. The growth of these cells turn out to be tumors, and hence results in breast cancer. One of the methods to cure breast cancer is the chemotherapy treatment. In this type of treatment anti-cancer drugs are passed into the body to destroy the cancer cells.

If the cancer cells haven't spread from where they are originated, chemotherapy could be used to reduce the risk of infected cells recurring again in the part. It is more effective when given to women to whom the infected cells spread to all parts of the body.

Chemotherapy method is performed by combination of ant-cancer drugs. The drugs can be either given orally or by injection. The drugs just travel through the bloodstream and destroy all the cancer cells present in the all parts of the body. There are so many drugs available for the chemotherapy treatment. Normally this method is given in cycles, it may last for seven or eight months or may be a year depending upon the drugs used.

There are 3 major types of chemotherapy treatment employed for breast cancer; Neoadjuvant chemotherapy, adjuvant chemotherapy, palliative chemotherapy.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is employed before the surgery to reduce the size of tumors. It makes the surgery to be performed easily.

Adjuvant chemotherapy is performed after the surgery. The main purpose here is to minimize the risk of recurrence of cancer cells.

Palliative chemotherapy is used to control the growth of the cancer cells that has spread all parts of the body.

Anand Prabhakar is an author living in India. He is an expert in chemotherapy for breast cancer and you can learn a lot about it from his website chemotherapy drug information

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