Breast Cancer – January 1st, 2004
Dr.S.Lakshmanan (General & Colon Rectal Surgeon),
Salem,
Illinois ,
USA. Breast cancer is the number one cancer in females. Approximately one percent of breast cancer do develop in men.
What are the risk factors in breast cancer?
1. Age – the older we get there is a higher incidence of breast cancer. 2. Breast cancer is high in who have had a previous personal or family history of breast cancer like mother, sisters or brothers. 3. Overweight 4. Ladies who never had any children or their first child after the age of 30. 5. Who consumes alcoholic beverages. 6. Genetic predisposition.
What are the signs and symptoms of breast cancer?
The signs are the information found out by the doctor, symptoms are what patient’s complaint to the doctor. The symptoms are lump in the breast, thickening or swelling, distortion of the skin or nipple. Skin irritation or dimpling of the nipple, ulceration or retraction of the nipple. Breast pain is commonly due to benign conditions and is not usually the first symptom of breast cancer. Earliest sign of breast cancer is an abnormality that shows up on the routine mammogram before it can be felt by the patient or by the doctor. What are the treatments available for the breast cancer? It depends upon the stage at which the cancer is diagnosed, the earlier the cancer usually simpler the treatment.
The following options are available:
1. Local removal of the tumor called lumpectomy and removal of the lymph nodes under the arm and followed by radiation therapy to the breast. 2. Mastectomy, which is surgical removal of the breast along with the lymph nodes under the arm. 3. Chemotherapy in selected cases. 4. Hormone therapy in selected cases. 5. Often times two or more methods are used in combination to have good results. Nowadays it is a proven fact that for early stage breast cancer the long term survival is equal after local removal of the tumor called the lumpectomy plus radiation therapy similar to survival rates after removing the entire breast.
Significant advances in reconstruction techniques are available nowadays. Several options for breast reconstruction is available, this needs to be discussed with the physician who is doing the surgery. The take home message in breast cancer is early detection, EARLY DETECTION means you find the cancers before you can feel the lump. This needs to be done on a routine x-ray of the breast called mammogram. Even if you don’t have any symptoms you do need to go to the doctor for routine health check up. The following guidelines are recommended by the
American Cancer Society for the breast cancer detection:
Women age 40 and older to have: 1. Yearly mammogram 2. Breast examination by doctor 3. Patient to do the self breast examination monthly Women ages 20-39 to have: 1. Examination of the breasts by doctor every 3 years 2. Patient to do the breast self examination monthly When a woman has a suspicious lump or other changes in the nipple or skin they need to seek medical help for further evaluation. To this date we are not able to find a cause for the breast cancer, hence we are not able to prevent it.
The next best solution is EARLY DETECTION by mammogram and periodic check ups by the patient and by the physician as per the above recommendation. The biggest advantage of the early detection is the cancer is treated in the early stage so that chances of that spreading to the other parts of the body, namely to lymph nodes, lung, liver, bone, brain are decreased and survival is prolonged.3. Also recommended to have a baseline mammogram once between the ages of 35-40