Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer General Information

Breast Cancer is also called breast carcinoma and affects three of ten women during their life and it kills more women than any other form of cancer, except lung cancer. This is a form of cancer that begins in the glandular tissues of women breasts, but it could also affect men, due to the fact that both male and female breast tissues have the same composition, although in a much more small percentage. Scientists say that there are two important types: lobular carcinoma that begins in those parts of the breast that produce milk (in the lobules) and ductal carcinoma, which is very common and it begins in the ducts (tubes) that connect the nipples with the breast, helping the milk to move. In some rare cases, Breast Cancer starts in some other parts of the breast than these two. What determines the tumor of this kind of cancer to grow is the estrogen hormone which many types of this cancer are sensitive to. These types of cancer are said to be ER (estrogen receptor) positive cancers. When a gene, HER2 is helping cells to divide, grow and repair between them, that woman is said to have HER2-positive Breast Cancer. It is believed that the HER2 positive is a more aggressive form of cancer and that it presents a higher risk to reoccur than the other types. This happens because when a cell (including a cancerous one) has a big number of copies of HER2 gene, it will grow faster and faster. This form of cancer is spread worldwide and the number of cases is still increasing.

Breast Cancer Symptoms

In the early stage, Breast Cancer does not develop any type of symptom at all. This is way many women detect too late they are sick and so, a regular visit to your health care provider is absolutely necessary for a breast examination. While the cancer grows, a woman could start complaining about strange fluids that leak from the nipples with an abnormal look like pus: clear-to-yellow, bloody, or green. When touching she may feel a hard breast lump or a lump in the armpit that produces pain, called mastodynia and it has uneven hedges. Also, the nipples and the breasts may change their appearance (shape, size or feel). Some women may present puckering, redness or dimpling that could give the impression that the skin looks like of an orange (peau d’orange). This is called an inflammatory cancer because the skin presents inflammation caused by the cancer that invades the small lymph vessels of the skin, known as dermal lymphatics. This blocking leads to warmth, pain and swelling and all other symptoms. When the cancer advances, the symptoms also aggravate and include: weight loss, discomfort of breasts and intense pain, swelling of the arm that is next to the breast with the tumor, skin ulcers, or bone pain. When affecting men, Breast Cancer manifests with pain in the breasts, presence of lumps in the breasts and tenderness. Usually, if new breast symptoms appear, they should be carefully analyzed by a specialist because this could be a sign that benign cancer will develop, such as mastitis, functional mastodynia or fibrocystic mastopathy.

Breast Cancer Treatment

You must call immediately your health care provider if you have examined your breasts and you have detected an armpit or breast lump. Also, in the case where a woman over 40 years old had not made a mammography in the last months or you are 35 years old or older and your grandmother, mother, or sister has Breast Cancer contact a specialist. You may be only 20, but you also need to know how to self-examine your breasts more often. So, if you do not know, see a medical professional. First, when seeing a doctor, he will ask you about any symptoms and only after this he will do a physical examination to both your armpits, breasts, chest area or neck. After he might demand for some additional tests, such as: breast MRI, for a better determination of the lump, a mammogram to identify the lump, biopsy of the breast, or a breast ultrasound to find out the consistency of the lump (if it is fluid-filled or solid). If the final diagnosis is Breast Cancer, your doctor may need to perform other several tests to see if the cancer has spread and to determine its stage. This is very useful in prescribing the future therapy. The treatment also depends on some other factors, such as type of the cancer, if the Breast Cancer produces excessively the HER2 gene and if it sensitive to some hormones.

Usually, a treatment against this disease includes: therapies using radiations which main aim is to destroy the cancerous tissues, chemotherapies (which uses medicines that help killing the cancerous cells), a mastectomy (a type of surgery that removes the breast, parts of it or areas nearby) and a lumpectomy (a type of surgery that only removes the breast lump). These are the main methods to treat Breast Cancer. We must be precise that any type of treatment for this kind of cancer is either systemic (chemotherapy, affecting the entire organism) and local (surgery or radiation that involve in the treatment only some parts of the body). Secondary tests may be considered the targeted therapies, also called biological therapies (interfere in the growth and functioning of the cancerous cells) and therapies with hormones that will block some other hormones that help the cancerous cells to develop. A drug used in the hormonal therapy is tamoxifen that blocks the estrogen so that the Breast Cancer cells can not grow and survive anymore. Recently, a new class of drugs has been discovered, the aromatase inhibitors (ex.: esemestone) that have the same effects as tamoxifen or even better in women who are after menopause age. A newer type of treatment is the targeted therapy use anti-cancer drugs (trastuzumab). This method, in combination with chemo, reduces with 50% the risk that the cancer reoccurs. The majority of women suffering of this kind of cancer receive a combination of these methods of treatment. It is very important to detect the cancer in its incipient stages. If not, the more advanced the tumor is, the poorer the prognosis.