Treatment Options Flashcards
Give the three main breast cancer treatment options.
Surgery, radiation, drugs
In a discussion of breast cancer, what is a stage?
A process of classifying the cancer and placing it into five stages depending on the extent of the primary tumor, regional lymph node involvement, and/or distant metastasis.
What is the difference between a modified radical mastectomy and the lumpectomy?
Modified radical mastectomy removes the entire breast, including the nipple/areola and some under-arm lymph nodes. Lumpectomy removes only the tumor and surrounding margins.
Lumpectomy is often combined with what two other treatment options?
Radiation therapy and/or chemotherapy and/or HRT
How long does the average radiation therapy treatment last?
External beam radiation typically runs 5-7 weeks
What are the two main methods used to deliver radiation therapy?
External and internal beam radiation
Give two advantages and two disadvantages of brachytherapy.
a. Advantages: Reduce treatment time, fewer skin reactions
b. Disadvantage: Not enough clinical trial or controlled studies, dose falls rapidly from source, specific areas around the lesion may not get a high dose of radiation.
Why is chemotherapy considered a systemic form of treatment?
The drug is distributed throughout the entire body and will affect all tissues and organs.
Identify four uses of chemotherapy.
Stop or slow the spread of cancer to other parts of the body, to kill cancer cells, and to relieve symptoms of cancer.
Why does chemotherapy cause a low blood cell count.
Chemotherapy affects the bone marrow that makes blood cells.
What is the main use of Tamoxifen?
For estrogen receptor positive cancer, tamoxifen blocks estrogen to the cancer therefore lowering the risk of recurrence.
Name the breast cancer treatment that combines a light source and a photosensitizing agent.
Photodynamic therapy
What is the main effect of antiangiogenesis drugs in cancer treatment?
They prevent the growth of new blood vessels necessary for cancer spread.
Identify the technique that does not involve microsurgery whereby skin, fat, and blood vessels plus at least one abdominal muscle is moved from the abdomen to the chest area as a breast mound.
TRAM flap
A radiation treatment that typically lasts 5-9 days is termed:
Brachytherapy (internal) 5-9 days vs. Teletherapy (external) once a day x 6 to 7 weeks
Of the following, which is the most breast conserving surgery? A. chemotherapy B. mastectomy C. modified radical mastectomy D. lumpectomy
Lumpectomy, it removes the lesion and surrounding margins.
Side effects of chemotherapy include:
- nausea or vomiting
- reduced white cell count
- increased red cell count
1 and 2- Chemo affects all the organs and tissues of the body. Blood cell count, red, white and platelets will fall and chemotherapy effect on the cell lining the gastro-intestinal track can cause nausea and vomiting.
If the margins of a specimen are positive, then
A. all cancer has been exhausted
B. additional tissue must be exercised
C. lumpectomy was the wrong treatment option
D. the patient will have to undergo a mastectomy
B. While removing a lesion the surgeon must ensure that all margins are clean. A positive margin indicates that all the cancerous cells have not been removed and the surgeon will have to remove more tissue.
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy refers to treatment
A. before surgery that utilizes anti estrogen drugs
C. before surgery t help shrink the size of the cancerous tumors
D. after surgery that involves radiation
C. Neoadjuvant treatment is given before surgery to help shrink the size of the cancerous tumor. Adjuvant chemotherapy is given in addition to another cancer treatment.
The benefits of tamoxifen are negligible after \_\_\_\_\_\_\_years A. 2 B. 3 C. 4 D. 5
D. The benefits of Tamoxifen are only considered effective within a 5-year period.
What is tamoxifen?
Tamoxifen is an anti-estrogen drug used to block estrogen from latching to the cancer receptor cells.
Advantages of brachytherapy (internal radiation) include all of the following except:
A. reduced time of treatment
B. less irritation of healthy breast tissue
C. longer delays before the start of treatment
D. fewer skin reactions
C. Brachytherapy is a method in internal radiation therapy. With Brachytherapy, the big-energy radiation beam is concentrated on the cancerous tissue sparing the surrounding normal tissue. This allows reduction in treatment time,less irritation of normal tissue and fewer skin reactions.
Reconstructing the breast to remove tissue is a technique that involves relocating the nipple is called: A. augmentation mammoplasty B. reduction mammoplasty C. core biopsy D. ductography
B. In reduction mammoplasty, the oversize of the breast is reduced. Augmentation will increase breast size. The core biopsy removes tissue sample for analysis and ductography is a check of the larger ducts.
The removal of tissue and muscle from the abdomen to reconstruct a breast mound using microsurgical techniques is called A. latissimus dorsi flap B. pedicle flap C. TRAM flap D. Free flap
C. The TRAM flap is the transverse rectus abdomens myocutaneous muscle flap where tissue and muscle from the abdomen is reconstructed to make a breast mound.
