What Are The Common Available Treatments For Mucinous Breast Cancer ?
Mastectomy
Mucinous Breast Cancer is a very rare type of invasive breast cancer and the mucus along with the cancer cells form a jelly type of tumor inside the breasts. Mastectomy is one such treatment that helps in treating mucinous breast cancer as it results in removing as much of the breast tissues as possible. A simple mastectomy procedure is one where the patient diagnosed with mucinous breast cancer needs to undergo removal of the infected breast without removal of the lymph nodes in the armpit area.
A sentinel node biopsy is performed to check whether the node or nodes closest to the breast area affected by mucinous breast cancer has any signs of cancer or not. If the lymph nodes are diagnosed to be affected by mucinous breast cancer, then a modified radical mastectomy procedure is carried out by the surgeon wherein the breast, some lymph nodes as well as the lining of the chest wall muscle will be removed by the surgeon.
Lumpectomy
If a patient is diagnosed with mild mucinous breast cancer, then she would be required to undergo lumpectomy wherein a small portion of the breast tissue that surrounds the grown tumor will be removed. This is a minimal invasive surgical procedure on the breast affected by mucinous breast cancer. The surgeon will perform this simple operation from the findings gained out of the mammogram and ultrasound results. It is important for the surgeon to make sure that there are no other lumps or bits or tentacles of the tumor left behind or else there is every possibility of the mucinous breast cancer to resurface on the patient.
Additional therapy
Hormonal therapy is basically an intake of medications such as Aromatase Inhibitor that will help in lower the amount of estrogens that are present in the body and thereby will reduce the chances of mucinous breast cancer to recur in the patient. Chemotherapy is another form of medical procedure that will help in destroying the mucinous breast cancer cells that may have broken off from the main tumor. This process involves the patients who have been treated for mucinous breast cancer to take anti cancer medicines either directly into the vein or in the form of a pill.
So, a person who has been treated for mucinous breast cancer with a small tumor of less than 1 cm may undergo hormonal therapy and a patient who had a tumor between 1 and 2.9 cm in size with a small amount of mucinous breast cancer in the lymph node may undergo chemotherapy along with hormonal therapy. But, if the tumor is about 3 cm or larger, then chemotherapy along with hormonal therapy for breast cancer is strongly recommended.