Innovative Treatments Help Many Women Win the
Battle Against Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the disease women fear most, but it isn’t the dire condition it was in the past. While about 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, more of them are winning the battle. More than 2 million women in the United States are breast cancer survivors. Scientists still don’t know why some women get breast cancer, but early detection and appropriate treatment are key to surviving breast cancer.

“The outlook for women with breast cancer has never been better,” says Christine Pellegrino, MD, director of the Breast Clinic at the Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center and assistant professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “We’re often able to diagnose breast cancer early and now use better and more targeted treatments that are saving many women’s lives.”

Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy are the most common treatments for breast cancer. But some exciting new therapies available at the Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center are saving the lives of women with early-stage breast cancer and prolonging the lives of women with more advanced cancer.

These therapies offered at the Cancer Center include new classes of chemotherapy drugs that cause fewer side effects as well as targeted therapies that fight specific types of breast cancer. This means doctors can better tailor treatments to each patient depending on the type of breast cancer she has. Several innovative medications also are making an impact on the treatment of breast cancer, including medications that combat tumors by inhibiting production of estrogen, a hormone some cancers need to survive; medications that prevent certain cancers from growing; and new supportive medications that help minimize side effects of cancer.

In the past, women who needed radiation therapy typically had daily treatments on their entire breast for six weeks. Now, there’s an effective and more convenient option called partial breast radiation. Once women have surgery to remove the cancer, doctors use a catheter to place tiny, high-dose radioactive seeds directly into the surgical site. The treatment is complete in just five days.

“We’re doing a better job of treating breast cancer and have more weapons to help prevent recurrences,” Dr. Pellegrino says. “New strategies such as vigilant screening, chemoprevention and prophylactic mastectomies can help women who have a strong family history of breast cancer, or who have genes that substantially increase their risk for the disease. Breast cancer treatments have come a long way over the past 10 years, and we expect to see even more improvements in the years ahead.”

Schedule Your Mammogram Today
Most Montefiore sites offer high-quality mammography screenings. Montefiore Advanced Imaging sites in the Greene Medical Arts Pavilion and the Breast Imaging Center also offer advanced diagnostic tests including: breast ultrasound, ultrasound core biopsies, fine-needle aspirations and stereotactic core biopsies. To learn more or make an appointment, please call 1-866-MMC-XRAY (866-662-9729).

Ask your doctor about your risk for breast cancer and mammography screenings. For more information about the Breast Clinic at the Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center, please visit: www.montefiore.org/cancer