CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 9, 170-173, Copyright
© 1959 by American Cancer Society
The Management of Patients with Advanced Breast Cancer
Frances H. Trimble M.D.1
1 The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland.
The table outlines the sequence of treatment used in the various age groups in the Breast Clinic of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Much can be offered to these patients and it is most important that the patient and her family should never be allowed to feel that the physician has given up hope. In deciding between the ablation procedures and the administration of hormones or chemotherapy, one must temper enthusiasm with clinical judgment and consider the patient's family and financial situation before involving them in the heavy costs of hospitalization followed by complicated and costly substitution therapy, when no cure can honestly be promised. Nothing is lost by a trial of conservative therapy, which can be conducted at home under the supervision of the family doctor.
