Treatment Options: Clinical Trials

Today, most women with breast cancer are diagnosed at an early stage and they benefit from newer, more effective treatments. There are treatments available for patients at all stages of breast cancer. Often, more than one type of treatment is needed. The treatments used today are listed below and described in detail later in this section.

Clinical Trials: where patients help scientists find new, improved treatments for cancer.

Surgery: taking out the cancer in an operation.

Radiation therapy: using high-dose x-rays to kill cancer cells or keep them from dividing and growing.

Chemotherapy: using anticancer drugs to kill or stop the growth of cancer cells.

High-dose chemotherapy: using high doses of anticancer drugs to kill cancer cells. High-dose drug treatments with peripheral stem cell transplantation and bone marrow transplantation are being tested in clinical trials.

Hormonal therapy: using hormones to stop cancer cells from growing.

Biological therapy (immunotherapy): using the immune system to fight cancer or to lessen the side effects that may be caused by some cancer treatments. Many biological therapies are being tested in clinical trials.

Breast reconstruction: surgery to rebuild a breast's shape.

Complementary therapies: you should discuss their possible value and side effects with your medical doctors.

Clinical Trials

Your doctor may suggest that you consider taking part in a breast cancer treatment clinical trial, where patients help scientists find new, improved treatments for cancer. You may want to ask your doctor if you should consider joining such a research study. It's important to make this decision before you start treatment because you may not be eligible if you have had certain treatments already. Every successful treatment used today started as a clinical trial, and the patients who participated were the first to benefit from improved therapy.

Research studies for breast cancer treatments take place in many hospitals and cancer centers across the country. In these clinical trials, doctors use the newest treatments to care for cancer patients. Each carefully planned study is designed to answer certain questions and to find out specific information about how well a new drug or treatment method works. All new treatments must go through three steps or "phases" of clinical trials:

Phase 1: Tests the best way to give a new treatment and how much can be given safely.

Phase 2: Finds out how well a treatment destroys cancer cells.

Phase 3: Compares two or more different treatments.

Each phase depends and builds on information from earlier phases. As time goes on, new and better ways to help cancer patients are being developed. It takes time, often several years, for clinical trials to prove the true value and effectiveness of a new treatment. All clinical-study patients receive the best care possible, and their reactions to the treatment are watched very closely. If the treatment doesn't seem to be helping, a doctor can take a patient out of a study. Also, a patient may choose to leave at any time. If a patient leaves a research study for any reason, standard care and treatment are still available.

If you are thinking about joining a breast cancer treatment clinical trial, your doctor can give you information that will help you decide if the choice is right for you. You should consider carefully what is involved and all possible benefits and risks of the treatment that is being offered.