Breast Cancer Treatment in New Albany, Indiana

Developing a breast cancer treatment plan is critical for recovery and avoiding relapse. Learn more about Baptist Health’s breast cancer treatment options.

Breast Cancer Treatment in New Albany, Indiana HealthTalks Transcript

Roseline Okeke, MD, Oncology:
Breast cancer is a very common medical disease in the United States. About 250,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, but it is also highly curable as long as it’s found early. Whenever a woman presents to us with a lump in her breast, we usually do a clinical assessment of the size of the lump. If the cancer is limited only to the breast, then we have discussions regarding management. This could include lumpectomy to remove the lump. Once we’ve already done surgery and looked at the pathology report, this tells us the exact extent of disease. We’ll use that information to make treatment decisions.

When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and she undergoes lumpectomy, part of completing her local treatment to prevent breast cancer relapse is to offer her additional radiation treatments. The purpose of radiation is to kill those small cancer cells that we are not able to see even on X-rays and prevent relapse within the breast. When a woman has been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer the question usually arises, does she need chemotherapy? Chemotherapy helps to kill small cancer cells that may be circulating in the blood.

These combination therapies are usually recommended for women who have high-risk for disease and relapse. The great news is breast cancer is highly curable, and our ultimate goal is to get women back to their normal lives.