Health Disease and Care

Having a positive biopsy or a suspicious mammogram for breast cancer are the scariest words that a woman can hear from her physician. Breast cancer isn’t just concerned with ill health, like all other diseases. There are several other issues that are associated with it, such as death, surgery, losing sexuality, body image and so on. Hence, it’s a stressful condition, both physically and mentally.

Unfortunately, this is the topmost reason for cancer among women and seconds the list of reasons that is causing cancer deaths in U.S. women. This is usually found in women in the age group of 45 to 55 years. Although, this is more common in women but even male population is not completely spared from its fatal condition. However, breast cancer accounts for only 1% of the total cancer deaths among the male population.

Increased awareness about the risk for breast cancer has increased the women’s concern about the disease and as a result, the number of females who are undergoing mammography screening. This leads to timely detection of the disease at an early stage and thereby enhances the chances of survival.

The most common symptom that serves to be an indication for breast cancer is the lump discovered in the armpit or breast. Some other symptoms are – lump or swelling in breast or armpit, retracted nipple, nipple discharge, pain or discomfort in nipple or breast, pitted or scaly skin over the nipple and continuous tenderness of breast.

One in every eight women becomes a victim of breast cancer once in their life. Though there is nothing that can be said regarding why women are most affected by breast cancer but there are a few unchangeable risk factors that are found to be the culprit:

1. Age – possibility of breast cancer increases in women as they age.
2. Genes – BRCA1 and 2 are the two genes that are highly responsible for breast cancer. Women whose family members have ovarian or breast cancer are advisable to get themselves checked regularly.
3. Periods – Women whose period begin before the age of 12 or whose menopause occur after the age of 55 needs to be careful.

Any woman who drinks alcohol, take pills for birth control, is overweight, have dense breast, have undergone hormone replacement therapy or those who have their first child later than 35 years of age are also at great risk and must stay alert for any warning signs.

Ductal carcinoma is the most common type of breast cancer, accounting for 85-90% of the total cases. This is followed by lobular carcinoma with 8% of the breast cancer cases. Besides these two, Paget’s disease of nipple and inflammatory breast cancer are the types of breast cancer that are not found very commonly.

Breast cancer that can spread from their original site of tumor to other breast or body parts is referred to as invasive breast cancer. Survival rates of breast cancer patients have greatly increased in the past decade with early diagnosis and better treatment methods.

Tags: breast cancer, cancer, Deadly Diseases, health articles

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