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In general, carcinogenic, or cancerous cells, are abnormal cells that grow and divide in an uncontrolled way, forming tumors. Cancer cells often travel through the body (through the lymphatic system or the bloodstream), invade other organs and form new tumors; this process is called metastases. The US National Cancer Institute defined breast cancer as: Cancer that forms in tissues of the breast, usually the ducts (tubes that carry milk to the nipple) and lobules (glands that make milk). Breast cancer occurs in both men and women, although male breast cancer is much less than female breast cancer.
Breast Cancer Risk Factors
No one knows the exact causes of breast cancer. Doctors often cannot explain why one woman develops breast cancer and another does not. Research has shown that women with certain risk factors (something that may increase the chance of developing a disease) are more likely than others to develop breast cancer, such as:
Breast Cancer Screening
Screening for breast cancer before there are symptoms can be important. Screening can help doctors find and treat cancer early. Treatment is more likely to work well when cancer is found early. There are several ways for screening:
Breast Self-Exam
Woman should perform monthly breast self-exams to check for any changes in her breasts shape, color or if there are any mass. If woman noticed any unusual change she should contact her health care provider. Breast self-exams cannot replace regular screening mammograms and clinical breast exams.
Clinical Breast Exam
The health care provider checks woman breasts for any abnormal signs, any lumps, and check the lymph nodes near the breast to see if they are enlarged.
Screening Mammogram A mammogram is a picture of the breast made with x-rays, it often can show a breast lump before it can be felt. Women in their 40s and older should have mammograms every 1 to 2 years.
- Age: The chance of getting breast cancer goes up as a woman gets older.
- Personal history of breast cancer
- Family history: if her mother, sister, or daughter had breast cancer or other relatives with breast cancer (in either her mother's or father's family).
- Certain breast changes: Some women have cells in the breast that look abnormal under a microscope.
- Reproductive and menstrual history: The older a woman is when she has her first child, women who had their first menstrual period before age 12, or went through menopause after age 55, or who never had children, or who take menopausal hormone therapy with estrogen plus progestin, and who used hormonal contraceptives for a long period.
- Race: Breast cancer is diagnosed more often in white women than Latina, Asian, or African women.
- Radiation therapy to the chest: before age 30.
- Being overweight or obese after menopause.
- Lack of physical activity and eat fatty diets.
- Drinking alcohol and/or smoking
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Breast Cancer Symptoms
Common symptoms of breast cancer include:
- A change in how the breast or nipple feels
- A lump or thickening in or near the breast or in the underarm area
- Nipple tenderness
- A change in how the breast or nipple looks
- A change in the size or shape of the breast
- A nipple turned inward into the breast
- The skin of the breast, areola, or nipple may be scaly, red, or swollen. It may have ridges or pitting so that it looks like the skin of an orange.
- Nipple discharge (fluid)
Breast cancer usually diagnosed by doctors through taking woman personal and family medical history, doing physical exam, breast mammogram, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Taking a biopsy (fluid or tissue is removed from the breast) and checked in laboratory for the carcinogenic cells.
Staging: Breast cancer usually starts as abnormal cells in the lining of a lobule, or in the lining of a duct, the latest is the invasive type, were cancer cells spreading outside the duct and invading nearby tissue inside the breast (see the near picture). Doctors differentiate cancer in stages, starting stage I where the tumor is no more than 2 cm across and the cancer cells have not spread beyond the breast, stages II & III; the cancer is larger in size and spread to the lymph nodes under the arm, stage IV, the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Breast cancer can spread to almost any other part of the body. The most common are the bones, liver, lungs, and brain. The new tumor has the same kind of abnormal cells and the same name as the primary tumor. For example, if breast cancer spreads to the brain, the cancer cells in the brain are actually breast cancer cells. The disease is metastatic breast cancer, not brain cancer. For that reason, it is treated as breast cancer, not bone cancer. Doctors call the new tumor "distant" or metastatic disease. top
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Breast Cancer Treatment Methods
The choice of treatment depends mainly on the stage of the disease. Cancer treatment is either local therapy or systemic therapy:
Local therapy: Such as surgery and radiation therapy (high-energy radiation from x-rays, gamma rays, neutrons, others), they remove or destroy cancer in the breast. When breast cancer has spread to other parts of the body, local therapy may be used to control the disease in those specific areas.
Systemic therapy: Such as chemotherapy (treatment with drugs), hormone therapy, and biological therapy as they enter the bloodstream and destroy or control cancer throughout the body. Many women receive more than one type of treatment.
Because cancer treatments often damage healthy cells and tissues, side effects are common. Side effects depend mainly on the type and extent of the treatment. Approximately 40% of patients experienced symptoms such as chills and fever during the first chemotherapy infusion, other symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, and pain, occurred infrequently with subsequent infusions. Neutropenia (a form of low white blood cells) is also a common side effect with some types of chemotherapy.
Preventing Strategies
Many risk factors can be avoided, others, such as family history, cannot be avoided. Women can help protect themselves by staying away from known risk factors whenever possible. Following are some advises to reduce your risk of having breast cancer:
- Exercise for 4 hours a week or more
- Eat a healthy diet, lot of vegetables and fruits and reduce the fats from your meals
- Maintain a suitable weight
- Stop smoking if you are a smoker and try to avoid smokers places
- Avoid alcohol
- Do breast self exam each month, clinical breast exam each year
- After age of 30 do mammogram each 2 years, and each year after age of 40
- Avoid using estrogens for long periods
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