One thing strikes dread in the minds of most women, breast cancer. A diagnosis of breast cancer frequently produces feelings of fear and anger. It can create anxiety in all members of an affected woman's family.

Usually such anxiety stems from a feeling that the woman and her family have no control over the outcome. It leaves them asking, "What can do away with that anxiety?" There is one way to empower both the families and the affected women. Breast cancer education can provide such empowerment. Breast cancer education teaches women what to expect; it often shows them that they have a choice of treatments.

Breast cancer education produces the best results when it helps to transform women. Breast cancer education that creates assertive women allows those women to participate actively in all steps of their treatment. It enables them to ask the physician questions-and even to request a second opinion.

Breast cancer education normally encourages those diagnosed with breast cancer to talk with other women. Breast cancer education therefore helps a woman with breast cancer to find needed support. Women with breast cancer need to make a very personal decision, but they don't need to make that decision on their own. 

Sometimes a woman's decision determines whether or not she needs chemotherapy. However, before a woman learns whether or not she will need chemotherapy for breast cancer, she should be meeting with her healthcare team. Most such teams include a surgical oncologist, a medical oncologist, a radiation oncologist and a plastic or reconstructive surgeon. The teams have the responsibility of telling women and their families just exactly what they expect the future to hold for each of the affected women. Breast cancer treatment normally follows a biopsy and blood tests.

A woman's physician should explain to his anxious female patient the meaning of the results and the significance of the pathology report. This explanation increases in effectiveness if it includes information about the stage of the cancer, information about how aggressively the cancer cells appear to be growing. Such information provides clues concerning what sort of surgical procedure should be used to eradicate the tumor.

The affected woman and her physician should together decide on the most suitable surgical procedure. Regardless of the type of surgery that might be made available to the affected women, breast cancer usually calls for something more. Many women also receive chemotherapy for breast cancer. Such chemotherapy is called an adjuvant therapy.

Chemotherapy kills any cancer cells that might have remained in the woman's body after the surgery. It helps to keep cancer cells from growing and producing a second tumor. Chemotherapy can create the greatest challenges to an affected woman. It can leave a woman sick and exhausted. It calls for continued support from her friends and family.  They must help her to focus on the benefits of chemotherapy for breast cancer.