Radiation vs Chemo: Your Options for Metastatic Breast Cancer

As breast cancer worsens in the body, it may take on several names. Advanced breast cancer, late-stage breast cancer, and metastatic breast cancer are all terms used to describe this point. The real question is: what can you do about it?  While many patients with breast cancer may go under surgery to remove the cancer, surgery alone does not guarantee the cancer is completely gone. Especially if the cancer has metastasized, or spread to other parts of the body, such as vital organs.  This is where chemotherapy and radiation can come into play. Radiation vs Chemo – The Main Differences You’ve no doubt heard the terms, but what do they really mean? Oftentimes, people talk about these treatments as if they’re the same, but they’re actually quite different. For starters, chemotherapy is a medication that is given orally or through the veins. Radiation, by contrast, delivers a high dose of energy right into the tumor to kill the cancer cells and shrink it. RELATED: Your Guide to Navigating Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatments Is Radiation Safer Than Chemo?  One of the well-known side effects of chemo is hair loss. This happens because chemo can unintentionally target cells that aren’t cancerous, including...