Breast Cancer Treatment

Choosing a breast cancer treatment can be confusing. This guide will help you understand your options and get ready to talk with your doctors. Together, you can make the best decisions for your care.  

Our breast cancer experts will create a treatment plan just for you, using the latest research and therapies. Your plan will target the type and stage of breast cancer you have. Our goal is to give you the best treatment results. 

Treatment for breast cancer can include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and hormone therapy. You may have 1 of these treatments, or a few treatments together. Your MSK care team will talk with you about the best therapies for you.  

We care for every person with kindness, warmth, and respect. 

Your care team includes doctors, nurses, and other experts who focus on breast cancer. They work together using the latest science to create a care plan just for you. Your care plan will focus on what matters most to you and what’s best for the cancer you have.

We offer special resources to help you during and after treatment. Your care plan may include nutrition advice, physical therapy, exercise, and mental health support. 

• Advanced surgery options that can save or reconstruct your breast. 
• Early access to new drug treatments through our clinical trials. 
• New systemic therapies, including many developed at MSK. These are drugs that target specific cancer subtypes. 
• Precise radiation therapy treatments. This approach has better results, is safer, and reduces side effects.
• Rehabilitation (rehab) to help you move with less pain. Our rehab experts also help with a type of swelling called lymphedema after your surgery. 
• Integrative medicine (also called complementary medicine) to care for side effects of treatment, such as nerve pain and hot flashes. Our integrative medicine experts also can help with general wellness during and after treatment. They can offer advice about supplements. 

Your care team may have a few treatment options to offer you. Treatment is based on the breast cancer type and stage.

If you have breast cancer, you may need to have surgery. Your breast surgeon will talk with you about your options and help you to get ready. 

They’ll explain what kind of surgery may be best for you, based on the: 

• Type of breast cancer.
• Stage.
• Location of the cancer.
• Size of your breast.
• Type of surgery you prefer.

There are 2 main types of surgery to remove breast cancer: 

• A lumpectomy removes just the cancer in the breast. Your breast surgeon will also take out a small amount of healthy tissue surrounding the cancer (the margin).  We will test the tissue for cancer cells. 
• A mastectomy removes your whole breast. Your breast surgeon may remove 1 or both breasts.  

The sentinel nodes are the first few nodes where breast cancer cells may spread to from the breast. To find the sentinel nodes, we inject (put) a small amount of dye into the breast. Then we track the dye to find the sentinel nodes.

We then remove the sentinel nodes, which is called a sentinel lymph node biopsy. This tells us if the cancer has spread from the breast into lymph nodes in the armpit.

For some, but not all, people with breast cancer, we do this procedure at the same time when we remove the cancer. We then send the lymph nodes we removed to a lab to check for cancer cells. 

Some people may need to have the sentinel lymph nodes and other lymph nodes removed. This is called an axillary lymph node dissection. Your doctor will decide which lymph node procedure you’ll need. 

Radiation therapy uses very precise high-energy beams to kill cancer cells. Radiation oncologists are cancer doctors with special training in using radiation to treat cancer.

MSK’s radiation therapy experts deliver radiation just to the breast tumor while keeping nearby healthy tissue safe. 

To treat breast cancer, we often use radiation therapy as a treatment: 

• After a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. 
• For metastatic breast cancer, which is cancer that has spread to other areas. 

Radiation therapy aims to kill off breast cancer cells with as few side effects as possible.   

Systemic therapies are drugs, such as chemotherapy, that travel through the body to kill cancer cells. 

You may have neoadjuvant (NEE-oh-A-joo-vant) therapy, which is treatment you get before breast cancer surgery. Neoadjuvant therapy shrinks tumors so they’re easier to remove during surgery. This type of therapy also can help with treatments after surgery.

You may have adjuvant (A-joo-vunt) therapy, which is treatment you get after breast cancer surgery. It’s used to kill any cancer cells that may be left in your breast or the rest of your body. 

Adjuvant therapy can lower the risk of breast cancer coming back or spreading.

Here are some systemic therapies for breast cancer:  

Your care team may talk with you about joining a breast cancer clinical trial. 

If you join a clinical trial, you may be able to try new drugs to treat your type of breast cancer. Our patients may get a new treatment at MSK years before it’s offered at most other places. 

Researchers follow strict rules to make sure all clinical trials are safe. The MSK research team will answer your questions and help you get ready for the trial. We follow your progress and keep you safe every step of the way.  

Clinical trials are research studies to test new treatments, procedures, or devices to see how well they work. Every cancer treatment given to a person was first tested in a clinical trial. 

Clinical trials can help us learn about a new breast cancer drug, such as:

• What are the ways it helps people?
• What side effects does it cause?
• What dose of the drug is safe to give?
• How well does it treat different types of breast cancer? 

Anyone can join a clinical trial from the very start of treatment, if there’s one that’s right for you.

MSK strongly encourages people from all races, genders, ages, and backgrounds to join clinical trials. It’s very important for research studies to include people from many backgrounds. It’s how our researchers can learn if a new treatment works for everyone, not just one group of people. 

Search for clinical trials

Our experts are always finding new ways of treating breast cancer and managing side effects. Explore breast cancer news from MSK. 

At MSK, your care is always a team effort. Our care teams combine the skill and experience of many kinds of breast cancer experts. They work together to give you the best cancer treatment.

Your care team has special training in how to diagnose and treat breast cancer. Their goal is to support you during and after treatment for breast cancer.

Your care team will include doctors, nurses, and healthcare providers who are experts in breast cancer. They meet often to share treatment ideas, the latest research, and new ways of thinking. 

Meet MSK's breast cancer experts

Cancer treatment affects your body and emotions. The experience is not the same for everyone. We will support you during your treatment.

But you’re also a person with a life beyond cancer. We want to help you get back to it. That’s why we have many programs and services to support you and your loved ones.

You can connect with other people going through cancer treatment in our virtual support groups, led by a social worker.

Or you may need help with side effects of treatment. We have experts with special training in treating pain. 

Your caregivers are a very important part of your care team. They need support, too. We have a Caregivers Clinic to help your loved ones cope with cancer. 
 

We believe cancer care needs to be as convenient as possible. We have treatment locations in New York City, Westchester, on Long Island, and in New Jersey.

At our locations, you can meet with your care team and get your breast cancer treatment.  MSK brings its expert care closer to you so you can get back home to what matters most.