Hormone Therapy is a form of systemic treatment of invasive breast cancer.

Hormones are substances that are produced normally in your body. While these hormones are essential to reproductive functions, they may also stimulate the growth of some types of breast cancer. With hormone therapy, your health care provider will give you drugs to stop your breast cancer cells from growing. Like chemotherapy, hormone therapy is a systemic treatment.

Hormone therapy is most effective for the kinds of breast cancer affected by hormones. Whether or not your cancer is affected by hormones is determined by laboratory tests.

Hormone therapy is often given in the form of a pill, taken each day.