The right Treatment of DCIS

Treatment of DCIS depends on its scope (as much of the breast is of interest) and its classification.

Surgery
The most important part of treatment is surgical removal of the affected breast tissue, together with a space (margin) of normal breast tissue around to ensure that all relevant tissues is removed. This is called a wide local excision (WLE).


Wide local excision is an example of breast-conservation therapy (only area of DCIS is removed, rather than the whole breast).

If the area DCIS is high, particularly for large, high quality, removal of the breast (mastectomy) may be recommended. Mastectomy is recommended as a treatment even if DCIS affects more than one area of the breast. This takes care of the condition in almost all women, and often do not need further treatment, but it is important for other breast should be checked at least once a year with mammography.

DCIS is not for public dissemination of the lymph nodes in the armpit (axilla), but sometimes, in the case of DCIS is large or spread; lymph nodes can be removed during the operation and checked for cancer cells. This is because, for some women, there may be an area of invasive tumor cells in DCIS that can spread to the lymph nodes. Before performing the operation, your doctor will discuss with you if you need to delete one of your lymph nodes.


Radiation
Radiation uses high energy X-rays to destroy abnormal cells while doing as little damage as possible to normal cells. Women who have high grade DCIS is often radiotherapy after surgery. This is because doctors believe that high-grade DCIS is more likely to come back and radiotherapy may help to reduce this risk. Women with low-grade DCIS are usually unnecessary radiotherapy. Radiation is usually every day for 3-6 weeks.

Hormone replacement therapy
Sometimes cancer cells in DCIS are estrogen receptors on their surface. This is called estrogen receptor-positive DCIS. This means that the cells are based on hormones, estrogen, to grow. Estrogen is a female hormone produced naturally in the body and can stimulate some breast cancer cells to divide and grow. If you have estrogen-receptor positive DCIS, you can be prescribed a drug called tamoxifen, which aims to counter the effects of estrogen.

Tamoxifen works in conjunction with estrogen receptors on the surface of tumor cells. This prevents the estrogen from entering cells and can stop cell growth or division.


However, tamoxifen does not work very well for all women with DCIS. Studies have shown that tamoxifen is more likely to be effective for women who received radiotherapy after wide local excision. It can not be effective for women who received radiotherapy. Other hormonal drugs may be better than tamoxifen at stopping DCIS from coming back after surgery.

There is ongoing research attempts to compare different hormonal Therapy

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