Health Touches

According to most sources, breast cancer is ‘cancer of the breast tissue’. Not very helpful. But digging a little deeper makes the answer clear. Cancer is a malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal or uncontrolled cell division. Normal cells become misshapen and grow too rapidly. The result is a mass or lump that continues to grow and may spread.

About one in twelve women will develop breast cancer sometime in her life. There are numerous risk factors for contracting breast cancer, some within your control and some that are not. Fortunately, for those factors that are in your control, no great sacrifice is required to minimize them.

According to official figures, only between 5-10% of breast cancer is caused by genetic influences. But even though the percentage is relatively low, the numbers are high enough to warrant many women and men seeking regular checkups. Yes, men get breast cancer, too. Only about 0.7% as often as women, but it does occur, killing about 12,000 men per year.

Medical professionals now have an extensive array of tools at their disposal to make diagnosis of breast cancer more reliable, especially in the early stages. That’s great news, since it considerably increases the odds of keeping breast cancer down to the level of ’serious but not permanently scarring or life-threatening’.

No area of oncology is more complex and controversial than the relationship of cancer and diet. Everyone would like to believe that there is some diet which can substantially affect the likelihood of cancer, or better still to cure it once contracted. But to date, the evidence of the effect of diet is unclear and often inconsistent.

The overall average of five-year survival rate for women who contract breast cancer is around 86% for those whose disease has not metastasized. That means, 86% of the women who contract it survive for at least five years. But even that fairly high number is just an overall average. The numbers are even better for some categories. Those numbers depend on the stage at which the cancer is detected and treated.

About 1 in 12 women will contract breast cancer some time during their life, with the odds increasing as they age. But with modern medicine, treatment can be relatively simple and effective. Key to that success, though, is early detection. A regular mammogram is one traditional and still highly useful tool to do so.

Radiation therapy remains one of the most common tools for breast cancer treatment, but it has been refined considerably over the years.

The prospect of surgery is never pleasant. But fortunately, breast cancer surgery today is more targeted than in years past. That leads to less scarring and quicker recovery, at the same time providing an effective treatment to lower the odds of recurrence.

In those tragic cases where a full mastectomy is required to treat breast cancer, reconstruction is a welcome option. With modern techniques and materials it is possible to restore appearance to a near invisible state. Carried out by specialized plastic surgeons, restoration is now commonplace.

Breast cancer remains a serious condition, affecting one in twelve women sometime in their lifetime. But, fortunately, it is no longer typically life threatening or permanently scarring.

Though still an area of active research, many lifestyle and environmental risk factors for breast cancer have been identified. Fortunately, almost all of them are controllable by an individual seeking to optimize his or her health. Yes, men get breast cancer, too, at about 1/133 the rate of women.