depend on other factors as well, including your overall health and personal preferences.
The stage (extent) of your breast cancer diagnosis really determines treatment options. Generally, the more breast cancer has spread, the more aggressive a treatment may have to be.
Cancer’s spread is usually categorized by stage:
Stage 0
The American Cancer Society says that Stage 0 means that the cancer is limited to the inside of the milk duct and is non-invasive. Treatment for this non-invasive breast tumor is often different from the treatment of invasive breast cancer.
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a stage 0 breast tumor.
Lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) used to be categorized as stage 0, but this has been changed because it is not cancer. Treatment for stages I to III breast cancer usually includes surgery and radiation therapy, often with chemo or other drug therapies either before (neoadjuvant) or after (adjuvant) surgery.
Stage I
These breast cancers are still relatively small and either have not spread to the lymph nodes or have only a tiny area of cancer spread in the sentinel lymph node (the first lymph node to which cancer is likely to spread).
Stage II
These breast cancers are larger than stage I cancers and/or have spread to a few nearby lymph nodes.
RELATED: Dense Breasts? This MRI Screening Can Rule Out Breast Cancer
Stage III
These tumors are larger or are growing into nearby tissues (the skin over the breast or the muscle underneath), or they have spread to many nearby lymph nodes.
Stage IV
Stage IV cancers have spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other parts of the body. Treatment for stage IV breast cancer is usually a systemic (drug) therapy.
Recurrent breast cancer
Cancer is called recurrent when it comes back after primary treatment. Recurrence can be local (in the same breast or in the surgery scar), regional (in nearby lymph nodes), or in a distant area. Treatment for recurrent breast cancer depends on where the cancer recurs and what treatments you’ve had before.