A Tbthealth reader commented on one of my posts on Facebook(also, you can email me on any topic you want me to Talkabout!) and said to help orientate him on Breast cancer as a whole. You might also need this. Read....
What is breast cancer?
Breast cancer is a kind of cancer that develops from breast cells. Breast cancer usually starts off in the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply them with milk. A malignant tumor can spread to other parts of the body. A breast cancer that started off in the lobules is known as lobular carcinoma, while one that developed from the ducts is called ductal carcinoma.
The vast majority of breast cancer cases occur in females. This article focuses on breast cancer in women. We also have an article about male breast cancer .
Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer in females worldwide. It accounts for 16% of all female cancers and 22.9% of invasive cancers in women. 18.2% of all cancer deaths worldwide, including both males and females, are from breast cancer.
Breast cancer rates are much higher in developed nations compared to developing ones. There are several reasons for this, with possibly life-expectancy being one of the key factors - breast cancer is more common in elderly women; women in the richest countries live much longer than those in the poorest nations. The different lifestyles and eating habits of females in rich and poor countries are also contributory factors, experts believe.
According to the National Cancer Institute , 232,340 female breast cancers and 2,240 male breast cancers are reported in the USA each year, as well as about 39,620 deaths caused by the disease.
The first symptoms of breast cancer are usually an area of thickened tissue in the woman's breast, or a lump. The majority of lumps are not cancerous; however, women should get them checked by a health care professional.
Women who detect any of the following signs or symptoms should tell their doctor
- A lump in a breast
- A pain in the armpits or breast that does not seem to be related to the woman's menstrual period
- Pitting or redness of the skin of the breast; like the skin of an orange
- A rash around (or on) one of the nipples
- A swelling (lump) in one of the armpits
- An area of thickened tissue in a breast
- One of the nipples has a discharge;
sometimes it may contain blood
- The nipple changes in appearance; it may become sunken or inverted
- The size or the shape of the breast changes
- The nipple-skin or breast-skin may have started to peel, scale or flake.
What causes breast cancer?
Experts are not sure what causes breast cancer. It is hard to say why one person develops the disease while another does not.
We know that some risk factors can impact on a woman's likelihood of developing breast cancer. These are:
Getting older - the older a woman gets, the higher is her risk of developing breast cancer; age is a risk factor. Over 80% of all female breast cancers occur among women aged 50+ years (after the menopause).
Genetics - women who have a close relative who has/had breast or ovarian cancer are more likely to develop breast cancer. If two close family members develop the disease, it does not necessarily mean they shared the genes that make them more vulnerable, because breast cancer is a relatively common cancer.
The majority of breast cancers are not hereditary.
Women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have a considerably higher risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer.
These genes can be inherited. TP53,
another gene, is also linked to greater
breast cancer risk.
A history of breast cancer - women who have had breast cancer, even non-invasive cancer, are more likely to develop the disease again, compared to women who have no history of the disease.
Having had certain types of breast lumps - Women who have had some types of benign (non-cancerous) breast lumps are more likely to develop cancer later on. Examples include atypical ductal hyperplasia or lobular carcinoma in situ.
Dense breast tissue - women with more dense breast tissue have a greater chance of developing breast cancer.
Estrogen exposure - women who started having periods earlier or entered menopause later than usual have a higher risk of developing breast cancer. This is because their bodies have been exposed to estrogen for longer. Estrogen exposure begins when periods start, and drops dramatically during the menopause.
Obesity - post-menopausal obese and overweight women may have a higher risk of developing breast cancer. Experts say that there are higher levels of estrogen in obese menopausal women, which may be the cause of the higher risk.
Height - taller-than-average women have a slightly greater likelihood of developing breast cancer than shorter-than-average women. Experts are not sure why.
Alcohol consumption - the more alcohol a woman regularly drinks, the higher her risk of developing breast cancer is. The Mayo Clinic says that if a woman wants to drink, she should not exceed one alcoholic beverage per day.
Radiation exposure - undergoing X-rays and CT scans may raise a woman's risk of developing breast cancer slightly. Scientists at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center found that women who had been treated with radiation to the chest for a childhood cancer have a higher risk of developing breast cancer.
HRT (hormone replacement therapy) - both forms, combined and estrogen-only HRT therapies may increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer slightly.
Combined HRT causes a higher risk.
Certain jobs - French researchers found that women who worked at night prior to a first pregnancy had a higher risk of eventually developing breast cancer.
Canadian researchers found that certain jobs, especially those that bring the human body into contact with possible carcinogens and endocrine disruptors are linked to a higher risk of developing breast cancer. Examples include bar/gambling,
automotive plastics manufacturing, metal-working, food canning and agriculture. They reported their findings in the November 2012 issue of Environmental Health .
Cosmetic implants may undermine breast cancer survival - women who have cosmetic breast implants and develop breast cancer may have a higher risk of dying prematurely form the disease compared to other females, researchers from Canada reported in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) (May 2013 issue).
The team looked at twelve peer-reviewed articles on observational studies which had been carried out in Europe, the USA and Canada.
Experts had long-wondered whether
cosmetic breast implants might make it harder to spot malignancy at an early
stage, because they produce shadows on mammograms.
In this latest study, the authors found that a woman with a cosmetic breast implant has a 25% higher risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer when the disease has already advanced, compared to those with no implants.
Women with cosmetic breast implants who are diagnosed with breast cancer have a 38% higher risk of death from the disease, compared to other patients diagnosed with the same disease who have no implants, the researchers wrote.
After warning that there were some
limitations in the twelve studies they looked at, the authors concluded "Further investigations are warranted into the long term effects of cosmetic breast implants on the detection and prognosis of breast cancer, adjusting for potential confounders."
Survival rate
A common misconception is to treat survival rates as ‘cure’ rates. There are very few types of cancer for which the five-year survival rate effectively represents a cure rate. For the vast majority of cancers survival rates continue to fall beyond five years after diagnosis, most notably breast cancer, where survival rates continue to decline more than twenty years after diagnosis.
Breast cancer survival rates beyond five years have been improving for more than 20 years, probably due to increased breast awareness, earlier detection and improved treatment.
Current ten year survival statistics for people diagnosed with primary breast cancer (ie no spread to other parts of the body) are between 20% and 89%, breaking down as follows:
For small early breast cancers, between 70% and 89% live for 10 years after diagnosis.
Between 70 - 78% in the following situations live for at least 10 years after diagnosis
A cancer smaller than 2cm, low grade, with cancer in 4 or more lymph nodes
A cancer smaller than 2cm, intermediate grade, with cancer in 1, 2 or 3 lymph nodes
Cancer between 2 and 7cm, low grade, with cancer in 1, 2, or 3 lymph nodes.
Cancer between 2 and 7cm, intermediate grade, with no cancer in the lymph nodes
In other words 5 - 10 years.
Sources: MNT, Yahoo & Tbthealth
Share to your Social Accounts
0 comments:
Post a Comment