Breast cancer infusion therapy
Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy, and targeted therapies
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses drugs to destroy cancer cells, usually by ending the cancer cells’ ability to grow and divide. A chemotherapy regimen, or schedule, usually consists of a combination of drugs given in a specific number of cycles over a set period of time. Chemotherapy may be given on many different schedules depending on what worked best in clinical trials for that specific type of regimen. It may be given once a week, once every 2 weeks (also called dose-dense), once every 3 weeks, or even once every 4 weeks. Side effects of chemotherapy depend on the individual, the drug(s) used, and the schedule and dose used, but can often be very successfully prevented or managed during treatment with supportive medications, and they usually go away after treatment is finished. Although each person’s experience can be different, many patients feel well during chemotherapy and are able to maintain a normal daily lifestyle.
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is a type of breast cancer treatment that helps your body’s immune system fight cancer by training it to find and destroy cancer cells. It’s used to treat high-risk curable (early-stage) and metastatic breast cancers. Breast cancer immunotherapy can be active or passive. Active immunotherapies are drugs that focus your immune system on breast cancer cells. To create these drugs, healthcare providers examine your breast cancer cells for antigens. Your healthy cells have antigens. So do intruders like cancer cells. Providers use what they learn about specific antigens to make drugs that focus your immune system on antigens in breast cancer cells. Passive immunotherapies are lab-made drugs that improve your immune system’s existing cancer-fighting tools.
Targeted therapies
Targeted drug therapy uses medicines that are directed at proteins on breast cancer cells that help them grow, spread, and live longer. Targeted drugs work to destroy cancer cells or slow down their growth. Some targeted therapy drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies, work in more than one way to control cancer cells and may also be considered immunotherapy because they boost the immune system. Like chemotherapy, these drugs enter the bloodstream and reach almost all areas of the body, which makes them useful against cancers that have spread to distant parts of the body. Targeted drugs sometimes work even when chemo drugs don’t or help other types of treatments work better.
Monoclonal antibodies
Monoclonal antibodies are man-made versions of immune system proteins (antibodies) that are designed to attach to a specific target. Some breast cancers make too much of a growth-promoting protein known as HER2. In HER2-positive breast cancers, this cancer tends to grow and spread more aggressively than HER2-negative breast cancers. Monoclonal antibodies attach to the HER2 protein on cancer cells, which can help stop the cells from growing.
Hormone therapy
Most hormone therapies are not administered by infusion, but are drugs taken as a pill or injection. Blocking the hormones can help prevent breast cancer recurrence when used after chemotherapy. Also called endocrine therapy, it’s an effective treatment for most tumors that test positive for either estrogen or progesterone receptors. This type of tumor uses hormones to fuel its growth. Depending on the type of hormone therapy used, it can stop the body from making the hormone or block the hormone from stimulating the cancer cells.
Questions or concerns about breast cancer or cancer care services call our cancer navigator 504.503.5594.
