Breast Cancer
What is cancer? Cancer is an abnormal mutation of cells that are damaged. These damaged cells start forming inside of you making a tumor. This tumor can start as a normal one called benign, which means it’s only undamaged cells producing in numerous amounts. It could also be a malignant one, meaning the cells damage the DNA and reproduce more cells with the same virus. The benign tumors are not a threat to our lives because they can be removed and won’t spread around the human body.
Malignant tumors are a risk to humans. These types of tumors can be spread around the body in a process called metastasis; where the tumor (cells) replaces normal tissue and enters blood vessels or lymph’s vessels. They can be removed but they can grow back, and can damage organs. The placement of where the tumor is located is usually the name of the cancer type and may have many reasons why it was caused. Cancer is caused by many reasons. For example cancer may be caused because of past family generations, radiation therapy, age, lack of physical activity, being overweight, menopauses, tobacco, alcohol, and sun exposure.
The alternative side is that there’s treatment for cancer that can treat the type of cancer and maybe even cure it. Treatments that are usually available for diagnosed patients are surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, hyperthermia, laser treatment, bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell transplant, blood transfusion, immunotherapy and many more. Breast Cancer: What is breast cancer? Breast cancer is a type of cancer where the cancer is located in the breast of females or males but most commonly for the ladies. This cancer starts out with cancerous cells forming in the side of the breast near the underarm or in the actual breast. The cells locate them self’s forming a bump (tumor) in the lobules of the breasts (milk producing organ) or the lymph nodes near the underarm.
If not detected in time the cancer can become worse that’s if the tumor turned out to be benign or malignant. Females with risk factors happen to have more chance of getting breast cancer than with those who don’t. In research there hasn’t been an actual reason of causes on breast cancer or why is it developed on some and others not. Some risk factors for breast cancer are age, ancestors with breast cancer, personal health history, genome changes, radiations in the chest, reproduction and menstrual history, race, breast density, overweight, and lack of physical activity, tobacco and alcohol. If breast cancer is detected at an early stage you may have bigger chances of surviving rather than detected late. Every female should do a regular annual checkup for a mammogram and a breast exam.
In a breast exam the doctor will check the breasts looking for lumps around the breasts and underarms, or for any abnormal things such as with skin, size, shape or rashes. A mammogram is an x-ray in the chest area where the doctors can look at the lumps if any in the breast and see the tumor. Knowing the symptoms of breast cancer is another way to be alert and prevent it to happen. The most common symptom would be a sign of a lump or knot in our breast or underarm. Other sings would be abnormal feelings breast such as a pain that wouldn’t end, redness, rashes, dark spots and swelling. Including any signs of itchiness, sores, pulling in your skin, puckering in the skin and nipple discharge.
All these symptoms could be warnings of having breast cancer. Another way to detect breast cancer is to do a breast self-exam by you. Doing a breast self-exam is practically getting familiar in knowing your own breasts. A check every month by yourself can detect lumps, tenderness, skin etc., and you can check how they look in certain times. The procedure to do your own check up is by just placing your hand on your breasts with your arm raised.
Doing this exam by yourself is just another way to check up on yourself for breast cancer and for you to start knowing your own body more for your own health. Depending on the type of breast cancer you contain you fall into categories of severity. From stage 0 to 4 their categorized by the size of the breast, if it reached the lymph nodes, classifies as invasive or non-invasive and if it had spread to other areas of the body. Defects of cure for breast cancer can be harsh. Females even lose their cancerous breast if it can’t be saved.
With the strong painful chemotherapy and radiations females tend to lose their hair and get weak because of the hair follicles die through chemo, have digestive problems, anemia, mouth problems, infections and fatigue. The diagnosed patients can even undergo through even more therapy depending on the severe of the tumor they have. Depending on the stage and treatment defines on the type of breast cancer. There are many types of breast cancers but not all of them are common. At least 10 types of breast cancers have been detected including the one for males. Treatment for breast cancer is determined by the type and type of stage you are in.
The treatment undergoes through painful therapy such as surgery (breast sparing or mastectomy), chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, hyperthermia, laser treatment, bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell transplant, blood transfusion, immunotherapy are just a few of many treatments to indulge breast cancer. Breast cancer also differs on ethnicity and age statistics. Generally the risk of getting breast cancer in age statistics is 40 years or older for any kind of ethnicity. The statistics for ethnicity is most common for the non-Hispanic white females compared to other ethnicities like African American, Hispanic, Asian or American Indian. Even though regarding of the statistics there’s still a chance for any age or ethnicity of woman to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Preventions can be taken also to have a lower risk in being diagnosed.
Some ways to decrease the risk of breast cancer is to take healthy vitamins that your body needs, lower consummation of tobacco or alcohol, exercise, avoid radiation exposure and watch out for inherited risk. These are many causes and preventions that females/males can take to lower their risk of ever getting breast cancer.
