With almost 59 000 new cases detected each year in France, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. Although it is still the leading cause of cancer-related death among women, medical advances, early screening and information campaigns such as Pink October have all helped to significantly improve the survival rate of patients.
But once recovery has begun, it’s time for physical and psychological reconstruction, which is essential if we are to overcome this ordeal and gradually return to a normal life.

A diagnosis of breast cancer justifies the implementation of a strategy that combines, in whole or in part, the following therapeutic methods: chemotherapy (CT), surgery, radiotherapy (RT), targeted therapies and hormone therapy (HT)… Although they cause numerous side-effects, most women will be cured (85-90% at 5 years). To ensure that quality of life is associated with this recovery, physiotherapy offers a range of techniques to help with the total reconstruction of the patient’s body.

Partial or total mastectomy, sentinel lymph node biopsy, axillary dissection, immediate reconstruction, delayed reconstruction or without reconstruction, treatments are adapted to the characteristics of the cancer (in situ, infiltrating, hormone receptor, HER2 or triple negative, genetic, metastatic, etc.). In all cases, from the mildest to the most virulent, the ultimate aim of the rehabilitation carried out by the physiotherapist is to enable the patient to regain body and tissue movement, and to engage in appropriate physical activity, which, thanks to numerous studies, has been shown to help prevent recurrence.

While manual “hands-on” techniques and “hands-off” exercises are essential, to achieve the best possible results, the rehabilitator must be assisted by instrumental techniques that have proved their worth in transforming connective tissue: scars, oedema and lymphoedema, fibrosis, tissue transformations with pain, with or without inflammation.