Board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Jagjit Tandon is the founder and CEO of Bradford Oncology in Bradford, Pennsylvania. An oncologist, Dr. Jagjit Tandon uses chemotherapy to treat patients with various cancers. He stays current with practice developments by regularly attending professional gatherings like St. Antonio Breast Cancer meetings.
There are several ways to treat breast cancer. The exact treatment oncologists recommend to patients depends on a number of factors, such as the tumor subtype, the stage of the cancer, and the patient’s genomic markers. The presence of known gene mutations is also considered, especially in patients with a family history of cancer. Other factors include the patient’s age, menopausal status, general health, and individual preferences.
The treatments themselves include surgery, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, biological therapy, and radiotherapy. Surgery is performed to remove the tumor from the patient’s body. It is often recommended when the tumor is small or early stage.
For larger tumors or cancers that are growing quickly, oncologists typically recommend systematic treatment that incorporates chemotherapy and hormonal therapy to first shrink the mass of cancer cells before surgery. Chemotherapy involves taking certain medications orally or intravenously to destroy or shrink cancer cells, while hormonal therapy involves cutting cancer cells’ supply of growth-supporting hormones.
In other cases, biological therapy, where oncologists leverage the body’s immune system to fight cancer, and radiotherapy, where high energy radio waves are directed to kill cancer cells, are used. After surgical or nonsurgical treatments, oncologists shift their focus to reducing the likelihood of recurrence.
