Breast cancer recovery

How likely am I to recover from breast cancer?

The likely outcome of your breast cancer and its treatment (prognosis) depends on how early your cancer was detected.

The estimated relative five-year survival rate for women diagnosed in England and Wales in 2001-2003 was 80 per cent, compared with only 52 per cent for women diagnosed in 1971-1975 (1).

The estimated relative twenty-year survival rate for women with breast cancer increased from 44 per cent in the early 1990s to 64 per cent in 2003 and continues to increase, as newer treatments become available (1).

Women diagnosed with breast cancer at the earliest stages have a nine in 10 (2) chance of beating the disease. If breast cancer is advanced when the doctor diagnoses it, less than two in 10 women will survive (2).

What are the treatments for breast cancer?

Any breast cancer treatment will be different according to the size and stage of the cancer, and if it has spread to other parts of the body.

The main treatments include the following:

  • Surgery to remove the lump (lumpectomy) or the whole breast (mastectomy), although the latter is performed less often today
  • Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells and is administered before or after surgery to reduce the size of the cancer or to reduce the chances of it returning
  • Radiotherapy will kill cancer cells with radiation and normally follows surgery to reduce the risk of the cancer returning in the treated breast and/or lymph nodes
  • Biological therapy is a newer treatment that uses biologic drugs, such as Herceptin. The drugs are used in cases of early breast cancer, where there are high levels of a protein called HER2
  • Hormone therapy using the drugs Tamoxifen or Arimidex can also be used to shrink the cancer

Refs:

  1. Cancer Research UK | Breast Cancer Survival Statistics | Accessed Mar 16 2009 | Page last updated: Oct 10 2005
  2. Cancer Research UK | Breast Cancer Screening | Accessed Mar 13 2009 | Page last updated: Jan 3 2008

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