If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, you will need to have further tests which can show whether or not the cancer will respond to specific types of treatment. The results of your tests can give your doctors a more complete picture of the type of cancer that you have and how best to treat you.
Hormone receptor test
In some cases, breast cancer cells are stimulated to grow by hormones that occur naturally in your body, such as oestrogen and progesterone. If this is the case, the cancer may be treated by stopping the effects of the hormones or lowering their levels in your body. This is known as hormone therapy.
A sample of cancer cells will be taken from your breast and tested to see if they respond to either oestrogen or progesterone. The cancer cells are said to respond if they have areas that let either hormone attach itself to them. These are known as hormone receptors.
If you have cancer cells that respond to oestrogen, the type of breast cancer that you have is said to be oestrogen-receptor positive. If the cancer cells respond to progesterone, the cancer is progesterone-receptor positive. Hormone therapy is most effective on cancers that are oestrogen-receptor positive, but this is only one of the ways that breast cancer can be treated.
HER2 test
While some types of breast cancer are stimulated to grow by hormones, other types are stimulated by a protein called HER2. These types of cancer may be treated by blocking the effects of HER2. This is known as biological therapy.
If the test shows that the cancer cells in your breast respond to HER2, it means that they have HER2 receptors (areas that let HER2 attach itself to them). This type of cancer is said to be HER2 positive.
Biological therapy can be used on breast cancers that are HER2 positive but, as with hormone therapy, biological therapy is only one of the ways in which breast cancer can be treated.
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