When Breast Cancer Comes Back

By Stacy Simon Thanks to improvements in breast cancer treatment over the past several decades, the end of treatment for many women means their cancer is gone. A successful end to treatment can be both stressful and exciting. You’re likely to be relieved to finish treatment, but you may find it hard not to worry about cancer coming back. This is very common among people who have had cancer. Steps for staying as healthy as possible include eating right, getting regular exercise, staying away from tobacco, limiting alcohol, and getting recommended screening tests. But sometimes, even when you’ve done everything within your power to lower your risk, you can still get cancer again. When the same cancer comes back after treatment, whether it’s a short time later or many years later, it’s called recurrence. Recurrence can be local (in the same breast or in the mastectomy scar), regional (in nearby lymph nodes), or in a distant area. Cancer that is found in the other breast is not a recurrence—it is a new cancer that requires its own treatment. RESOURCES: Cancer Recurrence Be Healthy After Treatment Local recurrence If your breast cancer has recurred locally, treatment depends on your first treatment. If you had breast-conserving surgery, a local recurrence in the breast is usually treated with mastectomy. If the first treatment was mastectomy, recurrence near the mastectomy site is treated by removing the tumor whenever possible. This is...
Source: American Cancer Society :: News and Features - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: Breast Cancer Coping with Cancer Source Type: news