Breast Cancer - Moose and Doc

A breast cancer explanations website

 

By Dr. Halls

LCIS Treatment Options (Lobular Carcinoma In-Situ)

 

Preventive surgery

One other option for treating LCIS is preventive (prophylactic) mastectomy. This surgery removes both breasts — not just the breast affected with LCIS — to reduce your risk of developing invasive breast cancer.

To obtain the best possible protective benefit from this surgery, both breasts are removed because LCIS increases your risk of developing breast cancer in either breast.

Preventive surgery may be an option for you if you’re at high risk of breast cancer based on your family history or a BRCA gene mutation. Surgery to treat LCIS isn’t urgent, so take time to carefully weigh the pros and cons of preventive mastectomy with your doctor.

I just want to let you know that this page is getting somewhat kind of old, but still really useful. I have created a newer version of this page with more up-to-date information on LCIS Treatments. Have a look!

Also, an older by still-good page on LCIS is here.

Chemo prevention

Two selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) drugs are approved to reduce the risk of invasive breast cancer. Both drugs work by blocking breast tissue’s receptivity to estrogen, which influences the development and growth of many breast tumors.
1) Tamoxifen (Nolvadex)
2) Raloxifene (Evista)

Treatment is not currently recommended for women with a diagnosis of lobular carcinoma in situ. Instead, women with LCIS should have yearly clinical breast examinations and mammograms, with the aim of detecting any invasive breast cancer early.

And now from our article:

Consider MR follow-up1
Surgical excision is controversial if no associated abnormalities such as microcalcifications, mass or architectural distortion are found2.

For further reading, I suggest you visit this page with more information on LCIS.
Below is the most common LCIS Q&A:

  • How is invasive lobular carcinoma treated? The majority of women with invasive lobular carcinoma have surgery. The surgeon removes the cancer from the breast. In most cases, the cancer can be removed with breast-conserving procedures. Those procedures remove only a portion of one or both breasts. How much is removed will depend on the size of your tumor. It will also depend on the extent of its spread throughout your breast and surrounding lymph nodes.
    Most doctors will also recommend treating invasive lobular carcinoma with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormone therapy, or some combination of the three. Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment. It will target cancer cells throughout your entire body. Radiation specifically focuses on the area around your breast cancer.
    Cells in invasive lobular carcinoma often contain estrogen and progesterone receptors. These make them prime targets for anti-estrogen hormone therapy.

References

  1. Kumar V, Abbas AK, Fausto N. Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease. Seventh Edition. Philadephia: Elsevier Saunders, 2005, p. 1123.
  2. Afonso N, Bouwman D (August 2008). "Lobular carcinoma in situ". Eur. J. Cancer Prev. 17 (4): 312–6.
  3. National Breast Cancer Centre. 2001. ‘Clinical practice guidelines for the management of early breast cancer:Second edition’. National Breast Cancer Centre, Camperdown,NSW

Back to breast cancer treatment list or to the brand new homepage.

About Steven Halls

Dr Halls has 25 years experience as a radiologist. He worked for 13 years at Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, a world-class cancer treatment facility. He has had high-volume experience with cancer, interventional procedures, clinical trials and his own phase 1 and 2 research in MRI and breast cancer staging.