Lifeboat Foundation

This is a nontoxic version of cancer treatment that works on any type of cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women in Singapore. Treatment is multimodal and often involves surgery to remove the cancer and lymph nodes involved.

Adjuvant therapy, given after the initial treatment, is used to irradiate and destroy micrometastases, which are cancer cells in the blood stream or lymphatics, to decrease recurrence. This form of therapy is subdivided into local (radiotherapy) and systemic therapy (endocrine therapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy).

Studies have shown that patient satisfaction has increased with breast conserving therapy (BCT) where only the tumor and a margin is removed from the body post mastectomy, compared to full mastectomy alone, which removes all parts of the breast. For BCT, radiotherapy has to be administered after lumpectomy, which removes other abnormal tissue from the breast and some normal tissue around it.