Can Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Patients Avoid Chemotherapy?

In the present day, cancer is one of the most common diseases to have occurred to a human being, not only in India but also in some of the major parts of the world. Cancer is quite a deadly disease that might occur to a person; the major factor due to which the disease is considered dangerous is that the disease does not show any type of noticeable symptoms in the earlier stages of development. So, it becomes difficult to understand whether the light symptoms that are negligible, are in fact the symptoms of cancer. Once they go unnoticed, the treatment is delayed for a long time and thus in the end, it becomes difficult to treat the diseases and it becomes hard for the cancer patient to recover. There can be several types of cancerous diseases that might occur to people, out of them, breast cancer is the most common one. Breast cancer is a common type of cancer that is known to affect quite a lot of women each year, causing a lot of health complications, along with life risks even in serious conditions. Now, it is common that many healthcare experts, especially gynecologists and oncologists advise women to choose chemotherapy because this medical solution is very much effective for any type of cancer, especially breast cancer. But you also need to keep one thing in mind, that is, that the female body undergoes a lot of physiological changes, and an important one of them is menopause. Menopause is a biological phenomenon that all women experience after they reach the age group of 45 to 55. Menopause is a phase that is marked by the stoppage in the occurrence of menstrual cycles in women. Here a pertinent question arises, that is if a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, then would it be possible for her to choose chemotherapy? To answer this question, there are certain aspects that you need to know in detail, which include what breast cancer in women is all about, what menopause means according to medical experts, all the use of chemotherapy to treat breast cancer, and more importantly to know whether it is safe to use chemotherapy to treat breast cancer after menopause. If are a person who is looking for the answers to these above questions, then this one is the most important article for you because this article aims to make you understand whether it is safe to go for chemotherapy in case of treating breast cancer after menopause or not.

Breast Cancer: Here Is All You Need to Know About It

Breast cancer is a type of cancer that is known to occur mostly among women because of the sudden and abnormal division of cells after rapid mutation in the genes. When breast cancer occurs, it is accompanied by unlimited and uncontrolled growth of cells that starts spreading into some of the major parts of the body and starts affecting the important organs of the body- a condition known as metastasis. Breast cancer is one form of cancer that is known to develop in the breast cells of a woman. In most cases, the cancer cells affect the lobules and/ or the ducts of the female mammary glands. These are some of the most important glands that produce breast milk. Apart from the lobules, there are other nodes, ducts, and pathways that play a major role in bringing the milk from the glands so that it can reach the nipple. When breast cancer occurs, all these areas might be affected because of an abnormal cell division and the fatty tissues and cells that are present in the breast might get damaged due to the carcinogenic metastasis. The fibrous and connective tissues that are present inside the breast might also be affected due to cancer. Apart from these, there are also cases when the cancer cells enter the healthy cells and tissues of the breast and affect several areas of the mammary glands. When the stage of the cancer further advances, these cancer cells even attack the lymph nodes that are present under the arms of a woman and gradually to the other major organs of the body, causing cancer to spread further. Breast cancer is treatable, and recovery is also possible, but you need to make sure that you are consulting your healthcare expert in time, and that you are getting the disease treated without lingering for long, otherwise, recovery might become much more difficult for you. It medically describes the stage when a woman is either experiencing just the end of her periods for life and thus it is assumed that after menopause, women will not be able to reproduce further because the body will not ovulate anymore.

Menopause In Women: What Do We Know About This Condition?

Menopause is a biological process that occurs to a woman when she has the end of her menstrual cycle each month. Menopause is a condition that marks the end of menstrual cycles in women, and it is a perfectly common and natural phenomenon that all women experience. If you want to know in detail, then it can be said that the eggs or the ova, which are commonly referred to as the female reproductive units that women are generally born with inside their ovaries, are responsible for stimulating and controlling the working mechanisms of the reproductive hormones in the female body, known as oestrogen and progesterone. These two hormones are responsible for the regulation of the processes of ovulation and fertilization, that is for regulating the overall reproductive functioning of the female body. Menopause occurs in a female body when the process of releasing eggs or ova through the process of ovulation comes to an end and thus menstruation stops. Some of the earliest symptoms of menstruation include the following ones:

• Missing periods
• Soreness in the breasts
• Sense of dryness in the vagina
• Periods becoming uneven and irregular
• The frequent urge to urination
• Excessive exhaustion and tiredness
• Sudden and abnormal mood swings
• Weight loss/ gain tendencies
• Hair loss
• Dryness and wrinkles in the eyes, skin, and other parts of the body
• Lack of sex drive or libido
• Problems in sleeping, along with sleep disorders such as insomnia

Chemotherapy and Menopause in Women

Chemotherapy is considered one of the most common types of treatment options for healing carcinogenic diseases, which can be often used to treat breast cancer as well. It is a type of drug treatment that is used to cure any type of cancer, including breast cancer, and it also helps to destroy the harmful cancer cells that can invade other healthy cells and damage them as well. The most important benefit of using chemotherapy is to lower the risk of further reoccurrence of cancer. Some oncologists and medical professionals advise women to undergo surgery and then suggest them to go for chemotherapy so that they can heal from their cancerous conditions, especially breast cancer. Some doctors might also recommend you undergo adjuvant therapy to treat breast cancer. In most conditions, doctors recommend you take chemotherapy first and then go for surgery, but the choice entirely depends on the health condition of the medical practitioner and the medical history of the cancer patient.

When a woman develops breast cancer, there might be an occurrence of a lump on the surface of her mammary glands and it is important to treat that malignant tumor or lump before it lets the cancer cells spread into the surrounding areas before they affect the major organs of the body. The major benefit of using chemotherapy is to chemotherapy for treating cancer is to reduce the further spreading of cancer cells or metastasis inside the cells. Yet, chemotherapy might have certain severe side effects on the overall physiological functions of the body, due to which the person might suffer.

Chemotherapy And Breast Cancer Treatment After Menopause: Can You Do That?

Now that you know everything about chemotherapy, breast cancer, and menopause, it is time to think whether you can go for chemotherapy to treat conditions of breast cancer even after menopause. Many experiments and expert opinions are now suggesting that you can use chemotherapy to treat breast cancer, but the results were positive when most of the women were pre-menopausal, under the age of 50.

The use of chemotherapy for treating breast cancer will entirely depend on the medical conditions and health of the cancer patient. Though menopause might have certain effects on the treatment, it is better to consult with the concerned oncologists and surgeons before you proceed with such treatment options.