Young Women With Breast Cancer And Chemo Treatments

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we talked about it earlier, but I think I want to address the topic again ...

Recent breast cancer research looks at the relationship between young women with breast cancer and chemo treatments. It seems if you have breast cancer at a young age, your prognosis isn't nearly as good then if you receive it at an older age.

Oncologists generally want younger woman to have the tumor removed followed by chemotherapy. However, studies have shown chemotherapy on its own isn't always successful. That's because younger woman most times have what's called hormone receptor positive breast cancer.

The European Organization for Research did several studies. 480 women under the age of 41 with early stage breast cancer were studied. They assessed estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and several other areas were accessed over just over 7 years.

The study showed that patients with ER positive tumors had a much better OS rate compared to those with ER Negative tumors. Now most of this is probably beginning to sound just a little bit like a foreign language, but the bottom line is ...

The end result of the study showed that younger women with hormone receptor positive tumors got far less benefit from chemotherapy than patients that had hormone receptor negative tumors. These various studies actually confirmed that chemotherapy treatment can't always be considered an optimum treatment choice in women that are under 41.

One way to reduce your risk of breast cancer at a young age is to regularly do a breast self-exam, often referred to as BSE. While it's not a cure it's a reliable method of getting to know your breasts and being able to recognize subtle changes.

Visit http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/testing/self_exam/index.jsp for some excellent information on doing your BSE including diagrams. Taking care of yourself with early BSE is the first step to early detection.