Treatment
Treatment largely follows patterns that have been set for the management of postmenopausal breast cancer. The initial treatment is surgical and consists of a modified radical mastectomy with axillary dissection or lumpectomy and radiation therapy with similar treatment results as in women. Also, mastectomy with sentinel lymph node biopsy is a treatment option. In men with node-negative tumors, adjuvant therapy is applied under the same considerations as in women with node-negative breast cancer. Similarly, with node-positive tumors, men increase survival using the same adjuvants as affected women, namely both chemotherapy plus tamoxifen and other hormonal therapy. There are no controlled studies in men comparing adjuvant options. In the vast majority of men with breast cancer hormone receptor studies are positive, and those situations are typically treated with hormonal therapy.
Locally recurrent disease is treated with surgical excision or radiation therapy combined with chemotherapy. Distant metastases are treated with hormonal therapy, chemotherapy, or a combination of both. Bones can be affected either by metastasis or weakened from hormonal therapy; bisphosphonates and calcitonin may be used to counterbalance this process and strengthen bones.
Read more about this topic: Male Breast Cancer
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child’s duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)