Introduction

Many women who get breast cancer say it changes their life. Most women cope better with their illness and have a better quality of life if they learn about their breast cancer and are involved in making decisions about their treatment.

We've brought together the best research about breast cancer and weighed up the evidence about how to treat it. You can use our information to talk to your doctor and decide which treatments are best for you.

It can be devastating to be told that you have breast cancer. The condition is so common that you may already know at least one woman who has it. But you can still feel frightened and alone when you're the one who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Getting breast cancer will undoubtedly change your life. We know from women with breast cancer that, although you'll feel shocked, you'll probably want to learn about your condition. Many women with breast cancer also say that, once the shock fades, they often appreciate life more and feel more positive and optimistic.

Key points for women with breast cancer

• More women live with breast cancer than die from it.

• Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the UK.

• Each generation of women has a better chance of surviving breast cancer than their mothers' generation.

• Different women will have different treatments, depending on what type of breast cancer they have and how they feel about the treatments.

• Early breast cancer can usually be cured.

• There are two main types of treatments for breast cancer. Treatment that just affects your breast, such as surgery and radiotherapy, and whole-body treatment, such as chemotherapy and hormone treatment.

• Breast-conserving surgery (which removes only some of your breast) often works just as well as a mastectomy (which removes all of your breast).

Your breasts

To understand how breast cancer starts and how it is treated, it helps to know about your breasts.

In women, the breast is designed to make milk for babies. Milk is made in parts of your breast called lobules. Milk drains into the nipple through thin tubes, called ducts.

• The space between the lobules and milk ducts is filled with supporting tissue (called connective tissue).

• A layer of fat surrounds the connective tissue and lies between the milk-producing parts of the breast and the skin.

• This layer of fat contains blood vessels (which carry oxygen and food to the cells of the breast) and lymph vessels (which carry a fluid, known as lymph, back into the bloodstream). To read more, see What are lymph vessels?

• The part of the breast that is most likely to get a disease is the part that includes the lobule and the last drain duct (known as the terminal duct lobular unit).