If you are diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer , your doctor will likely recommend surgery to remove the tumor and any other cancerous tissue surrounding it. One of the reasons cancer is challenging to treat, however, is the possibility that it can come back, or recur , after initial treatment. This is why surgery is often followed by additional treatment, such as chemotherapy , hormone therapy, and/or radiation therapy .

To determine treatment options for you, you and your doctors should consider the specific implications of various treatments. For example, you should discuss a treatment's ability to reduce the likelihood that your breast cancer will return, and contrast this with likely side effects from that particular treatment.

You may already know that chemotherapy can treat breast cancer effectively, but it does have side effects. Also, chemotherapy does not benefit all women equally. In fact, studies have shown that, on average, less than 10% of patients with early-stage estrogen receptor-positive ( ER+ ), lymph node-negative breast cancer who are treated with hormone therapy derive a benefit from chemotherapy in addition to hormone therapy.

Before deciding whether chemotherapy is right for you (in addition to hormone therapy), you and your doctor should consider how likely your breast cancer is to return and how much benefit you are likely to get from additional treatment, such as chemotherapy. The individual likelihood of your breast cancer returning can provide you and your healthcare team with insight into apppropriate treatment options for your breast cancer.

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