What Are My Treatment Options If The Cancer Does Not Respond To Chemotherapy?

— -- Question: What are my treatment options if the cancer does not respond to the prescribed chemotherapy treatment?

Answer: Usually when we're talking about cancer not responding to treatment is when a woman has advanced or metastatic breast cancer where we can see if the cancer is getting better or getting worse. And in that situation when the cancer isn't responding to the treatment, oftentimes your doctor would think about prescribing a different kind of chemotherapy treatment.

There are a number of different chemotherapy drugs, sometimes used by themselves, sometimes used in combination, for women who have advanced or metastatic breast cancer. A couple of other things to think about, you want to make sure that hormonal treatment has been tried if your cancer is hormone receptor-positive. Sometimes chemotherapy doesn't work and hormonal treatments will occasionally work. The other thing to know is that for breast tumors that are HER2/neu-positive, a treatment called Herceptin can be very beneficial. These are all things you should talk about with your doctor.

Next: Does all chemotherapy cause the same side effects and when do they occur?

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