Treatments for locally advanced breast cancer

Locally advanced breast cancer is bigger than 5 centimetres (around 2 inches), or has spread to your skin or to the front of your chest, or to both your skin and chest. The lymph nodes under your armpit might also have become matted together by the tumour. But the cancer has not spread to other parts of your body (it has not metastasised).

Key points about treating locally advanced breast cancer

You'll probably have surgery to remove your breast (a mastectomy).
You'll probably have chemotherapy. This is the standard treatment. But the research on how well this works is not very good.
Having radiotherapy after surgery can reduce the chance of your cancer coming back, and it can help you live longer.
If your cancer cells are sensitive to the hormone oestrogen (they are what's called oestrogen-receptor positive), taking a drug (tamoxifen) to stop your body responding to oestrogen can reduce the chance of your cancer coming back.

Treatments for locally advanced breast cancer

Which treatments work best for this type of breast cancer? We've carefully weighed up the research and divided the treatments into categories. You can find out more about each treatment by clicking on the links below.

Treatments that are likely to work

Surgery: If you have locally advanced breast cancer, you will probably have a mastectomy. More...
Radiotherapy after surgery: After surgery, you might also have radiotherapy to make sure that any cancer cells that are left have been killed. The nearby lymph nodes may be treated as well. More...
Hormone treatment plus radiotherapy: Radiotherapy is used to kill cancer cells. Tamoxifen is used to block the action of oestrogen in the body. Some breast cancers are encouraged to grow by oestrogen. More...

Treatments that need further study

Chemotherapy: Treatment with anti-cancer drugs attempts to kill cancer cells anywhere in the body. More...

Other treatments

The following treatment hasn't been studied to the same scientific standards that we use to judge other treatments. (To read more, see .) But we wanted to cover this treatment because you may be interested in it.

Trastuzumab (Herceptin): This is a drug that is used with chemotherapy or by itself to stop some cancers from growing. It works only on tumors that make a protein called HER-2. About 1 in 5 women with breast cancer have this type. More...

Glossary

lymph nodes: Lymph nodes (also called lymph glands) are small, bean-shaped lumps that you can't usually see or feel easily. You have them in various parts of your body, such as your neck, armpit and groin. Lymph nodes filter lymph and remove unwanted things from your body, such as bacteria and cancer cells.
hormones: Hormones are chemicals that are made in certain parts of the body. They travel through the bloodstream and have an effect on other parts of the body. For example, the female sex hormone is made in a woman's ovaries. Oestrogen has many different effects on a woman's body. For example, it makes the breasts grow at puberty and helps control periods. It is also needed to get pregnant.
oestrogen: Oestrogen is the name given to three female sex hormones: oestradiol, oestrone and oestriol. Oestrogen causes women's sexual development during puberty: it is needed to develop breasts, have periods and get pregnant. Oestrogen is also thought to affect women's health in other ways. It may influence their mood, cholesterol levels and how their bones grow. Men have very low levels of oestrogen in their bodies, but doctors aren't completely sure what it does. Oestrogen is an important ingredient in most types of contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy.
oestrogen-receptor positive: Oestrogen-receptor positive tumours are cancers that are encouraged to grow by the presence of the hormone oestrogen.

This information does not replace medical advice. If you are concerned you might have a medical problem please ask your Boots pharmacy team in your local Boots store, or see your doctor.