You can have hormone treatments if a test on your breast tumour has shown it to be hormone positive – that is, it's growth is dependent on hormones and therefore, sensitive to hormone treatment.
Hormone treatments stop you producing the oestrogen and progesterone hormones, or reduce the cancer cells’ ability to respond to them. It works best against secondary cancer in the bones and the lymph nodes in the neck.
Any hormone treatment for secondary breast cancer will depend on what treatments you’ve already had. So, if you’ve previously taken tamoxifen, for example, your doctor may suggest trying something different at this stage.
Oophorectomy
If you haven’t been through the menopause, another option is an oophorectomy, an operation to remove your ovaries. This will stop you producing oestrogen permanently. You’ll only be offered this operation if your receptor test showed that your cancer is oestrogen receptor positive, and that your ovaries are still producing oestrogen.
You can learn more about hormone therapy for the treatment of secondary breast cancer at the Cancer Research UK website.
