Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, second only to lung cancer.
Breast cancer is mostly commonly diagnosed in women, but men can get breast cancer, too.
Breast Cancer Treatment: Why Choose Dignity Health
St. Joseph's Cancer Institute offers our patients a number of treatment options for breast cancer. We will discuss your options with you and decide on the approach that offers you the best outcome. Take some time at see what our Breast Center of Excellence has to offer.
Advanced therapy
We often recommend surgery as the first treatment. The goal of surgery is to remove the lump and surrounding cancerous tissue. After your surgery, we want to ensure that we destroy any remaining cancer cells. One way to do that is with a special radiation therapy called brachytherapy. During brachytherapy, we insert a catheter into the affected area and deliver high-intensity radiation through the catheter, directly to the area. You receive this treatment on an outpatient basis.
There are many advantages to this form of radiation therapy, including:
- We can accelerate the delivery of therapy, reducing the time you need to travel to and spend time at the hospital.
- Overall time to deliver treatment is only one week, compared to more than six weeks when using external beam radiation therapy.
- The catheter delivers the radiation directly to the affected area, leaving surrounding healthy structures untouched.
Connect with a Breast Cancer Specialist
Breast cancer affects women from all different walks of life. If you’re at risk, talk to your doctor about screening options. Don’t have a doctor? We can help. Use our Find a Doctor tool to locate a specialist near you.
