Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
What is adjuvant therapy? The word adjuvant or "adjunctive to" means therapy that is in
addition to the surgery that I will be performing. So what forms of adjuvant therapies are there?
Well the primary one that patients think about of course is chemotherapy and yes that can
be an important adjunct. The thing about chemotherapy is that chemotherapy is needed to treat the
whole body. So if you have an invasive breast cancer, we know that we need to treat the
whole body. Now that may involve chemotherapy, but it may also involve adjuvant antihormonal
therapy and I will also be providing a clip here that explains from a medical oncologist
point of view the whole issue of adjuvant chemotherapy and also the issue of adjuvant
antihormonal therapy. What is the important concept? The important concept is treating
the whole body. Because of cancer cells that are potentially shut off and gone elsewhere
in the body and we have known for over 30 years know that adjuvant treatment is really
critical in the overall big picture treatment of breast cancer. Another use of the word
Adjuvant is in the arena of radiation therapy and I also have videos that we can share with
you about radiation therapy, the concepts of radiation therapy, and we will also provide
video clips from a radiation oncologist, the doctor who does the radiation therapy. But
if you have a lumpectomy for either in situ or invasive breast cancer then we know that
the radiation therapy of the breast either whole breast or partial breast is an important
adjunct in the proper local regional treatment of your breast cancer. In addition, there
are certainly times where we do radiation therapy after a mastectomy even that is an
adjunct because of the stage of the disease all again part of local regional control with
radiation therapy. So the term adjuvant is an important term to understand it means the
treatments in addition to the surgical treatment that you will be receiving.