Chemotherapy may begin before surgery; however, it is usually started a few weeks afterwards. This treatment is also prescribed for recurrent or inoperable cancers. Chemotherapy appears to be most effective in preventing a recurrence among younger women who have not gone through menopause. The side effects loss of hair, nausea, reduced immunity to infections, mouth sores, fatigue, and bleeding problems are temporary, but still very trying. For this reason, chemotherapy may not be recommended for an older woman, especially if her cancer is localized. Hormone Therapy. Cancer specialists now believe that almost all breast cancer patients can benefit from hormone therapy, even if their tumors are not the type stimulated by estrogen or proges terone. Thmoxifen (Nolvadex), a drug that blocks estrogen, is the treatment of choice. It has fewer side effects than anticancer drugs, although it may cause hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms in younger women. Other, more radical approaches to hormone manipulation include ovarian ablation, a procedure in which the ovaries are either surgically removed or destroyed by chemicals or radiation, and perhaps the removal of other hormone producing glands.

Experimental Treatments

Women with advanced breast cancer may be candidates for experimental therapies such as hyperthermia, in which very high fevers are induced to kill cancer cells,photodynamic therapy, which uses a light sensitive anticancer drug; and bone marrow transplantation, in which the woman's bone marrow is destroyed by drugs and then replaced with healthy marrow to bolster the body's ability to fight the cancer.

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