Breast cancer is a disease that specifically affects women, but it may also affect men, albeit at a much lower rate, as doctors have recently made great achievements in the areas of early detection and treatment of breast cancer, to reduce the number of deaths caused by the disease. Previously, screening for breast cancer meant removing the entire breast.
Today, however, these operations are only performed in rare cases, as there is a wide range of treatments available.
Classification of carcinoma
A carcinoid tumor is graded on a scale of 0 - 4IV (four), as follows
Grade 0
It is also called non-invasive or local breast cancer. Although these tumors do not have the ability to invade healthy tissue in the breast or spread to other organs in the body, it is important to excise and remove them. Because they may turn into invasive tumors in the future.
Grades 1 - 4
They are invasive tumors that have the ability to invade healthy tissues in the breast and then spread to other organs in the body. A cancerous tumor in the first degree is a small and local tumor, and the chances of a full recovery from it are very high, but the higher the grade, the lower the chances of recovery.
Class 4
It is a cancerous tumor that has moved outside the breast tissue and spread to other organs of the body, such as: the lungs, bones, and liver, and although cancer cannot be cured at this stage, there is a possibility that it will respond in a good way to various treatments that will cause shrinkage and diminishment. tumor and keep it under control for a long period of time.
Symptoms of breast cancer
Awareness and alertness to the early signs and symptoms of breast cancer can save your life. When the disease is detected in its early initial stages, the range of treatments available is wider and more diverse, and the chances of a full recovery are very high.
Most lumps that are discovered in the breast are not malignant. However, the most common early sign of breast cancer in both women and men is the appearance of a lump or thickening in the breast tissue. This lump is often painless.
Symptoms of breast cancer include
Secretion of a transparent or blood-like substance from the nipple, sometimes appears with the appearance of a lump in the breast.
Nipple retraction or indentation.
Change in the size or features of the breast.
Flattening or indentation of the skin covering the breast.
The appearance of redness or wrinkled skin on the surface of the breast, such as an orange peel.
Causes and risk factors for breast cancer
Breast cancer means that a number of breast cells have begun to multiply abnormally. These cells divide more rapidly than healthy cells and can begin to spread throughout the breast tissue into the lymph nodes and even to other organs in the body.
The most common type of breast cancer begins in the milk-producing glands, but it can also start in a sub-lobule or in other breast tissue. In most cases, it''s not clear why healthy cells in breast tissue turn cancerous.
1. Causes of breast cancer
Doctors know the causes of the disease as follows
heredity
Only 5-10% of breast cancer cases are due to hereditary causes. There are families that have a defect in one or two genes, such as breast cancer gene No. 1 (BRCA 1) or breast cancer gene No. 2 (BRCA 2), and this is the possibility of their children being exposed to and daughters, the incidence of breast or ovarian cancer is very high.
Other genetic defects
Such as the ataxia-telangiectasia mutation gene, and gene number (P53) responsible for bridging tumors, all of which increase the risk of breast cancer. If one of these genetic defects is present in your family, there is a 50% chance that the defect is present. You have it too.
Most of the genetic defects associated with breast cancer are not inherited.
The cause of these acquired defects may be due to exposure to radiation, such as women who were treated with radiation in the chest area to treat fibroid tumors in childhood or adolescence, or the stage of breast growth and development, are more likely to develop breast cancer than women who were not exposed to such radiation.
Genetic changes may also occur as a result of exposure to substances that cause cancer, such as: some hydrocarbons found in tobacco and charred red meat.
Today, researchers are trying to find out if there is any relationship between the genetic makeup of a particular person and the environmental factors that may increase the risk of breast cancer, and it may prove that many factors may cause the emergence of breast cancer.
2. Risk factors for breast cancer
A risk factor is anything that increases the odds of developing a particular disease. Some risk factors, such as age, gender and family history, cannot be changed while others can be controlled, such as smoking or poor diet.
However, even if you have one or more risk factors, this does not necessarily mean that you will develop breast cancer, as the majority of women who suffer from breast cancer develop it just because they are women and do not have any other additional risk factors.
As being a woman is the most important risk factor for breast cancer, although men are also at risk of developing breast cancer, it is much more common among women.
Other major risk factors that can increase the risk of breast cancer include
Age.
A personal history of exposure to breast cancer.
family history
genetic tendency.
Exposure to radiation.
Overweight.
Menstruation at a relatively early age.
Reaching menopause at a relatively late age.
Hormone therapy.
Take birth control pills.
smoking.
Precancerous changes in breast tissue.
High density of breast tissue in mammography.
Age and the specific period of menopause may affect the density of breast tissue, as the density of breast tissue in young women is usually higher than that of advanced women.
Hormones also have an effect on this. The higher the hormone levels, the higher the density of breast tissue. Despite this, the risk of developing breast cancer due to the high density of breast tissue increases by only a small percentage.
If you are in one of the groups at high risk of breast cancer and your breast tissue density is high, the radiography may be difficult to analyze, and then your doctor may advise you to have other screening tests.
Reasons for the appearance of tumors that are not malignant in the breast
There are medical conditions other than breast cancer that can lead to a change in the size or texture of the breast. Breast tissue naturally changes during pregnancy and during menstruation.
Other possible causes for the appearance of non-cancerous tumors in the breast include the following:
Fibrocystic changes.
cyst.
fibroadenoma.
inflammation or injury.
Complications of breast cancer
Complications include
Anatomical changes of the breast.
chronic pain
phantom breast pain
and axillary web syndrome.
Lymphedema.
Fatigue and cognitive impairment.
Breast cancer diagnosis
If you notice a lump, or any change in your breast, even if a recent mammogram was normal, you should contact your doctor for evaluation.
If you have not passed menopause, it may be better to wait for one menstrual cycle before seeing a doctor, but if the changes in the breast do not disappear after a month, it is necessary to go to the doctor to evaluate the situation, and the most prominent methods of diagnosis include the following:
1. Photography
Looking for clues to breast cancer before the first symptoms appear is key to early detection of breast cancer while it is still in a treatable stage.
According to information about age and risk groups to which you may belong, mammography, or other examinations, are performed.
2. Breast self-examination
Breast self-examination is only one of the possibilities and it should be done on a permanent and regular basis starting from the age of 20 years, as gaining experience with breast self-examination, and getting to know the tissues and structure of your breast on a permanent and regular basis, may make you able to detect early signs of breast cancer.
You should learn how your breast usually looks and be alert for any change in sensation or in the texture of the breast. If you notice any changes, you should inform your doctor as soon as possible.
3. Breast examination in the clinic
If you have had breast cancer in your family, or if you belong to one of the high-risk groups for breast cancer, it is recommended that you have a breast exam in the clinic once every three years until you reach the age of 40, and once every year thereafter .
During this examination, the doctor checks the breast tissue to look for lumps or other changes in the breast, where the doctor can detect lumps or changes that you could not notice, and he can also notice an increase in the size of the lymph nodes in the armpit area.
4. Mammography
A mammogram, which examines breast tissue by producing X-ray images, is today the most reliable test for early detection of precancerous masses in the breast, even before a doctor feels them by touching the breast manually. This is why this test is recommended for all women over the age of 40 more frequently.
There are two types of mammograms
Scanning mammography.
Diagnostic mammography.
However, radiographic examinations are not perfect. There is a certain percentage of carcinomas and sometimes masses that can be felt on self-examination and do not show up on an X-ray.
This percentage is higher among women who are in their forties This is because women this age and younger women are more likely to have a higher density of breast tissue, which makes it difficult to distinguish between healthy and abnormal tissue.
5. Other examinations
Other notable examinations include the following
Computer aided detection.
Digital mammography.
MRI.
6. Diagnostic procedures
Diagnostic procedures help identify and characterize abnormalities in breast tissue that are detected on routine examinations, such as a palpable breast lump, or by visualizing mammography or magnetic resonance imaging.
These tests help the doctor decide if you need a biopsy (a medical procedure in which cells or tissue are taken as a sample for analysis and examination in a laboratory), and help formulate directions for how to perform the biopsy.
7. Ultrasound
This examination is used to check whether the detected lumps in the breast are solid or not.
8. Biopsy
It is the only test that can confirm the presence of cancerous cells. A biopsy is a test that can provide us with very vital information about any abnormal or abnormal changes in the breast tissue, and help determine the need for surgery and the type of surgery required.
Types of biopsies that may be performed
Fine needle biopsy.
Thick needle biopsy (Coreneedle)
Stereotactic biopsy.
Surgical biopsy.
9. Estrogen and Progesterone Receptors Check
The presence of hormonal receptors can be examined in the cancer cells that were removed during the biopsy, where if you find estrogen receptors or progesterone receptors or both together, then your doctor advises you to take medications, such as: Tamoxifen, as it prevents estrogen from reaching these areas.
10. Staging examination
Examinations for grading the severity of the disease, through which the size and location of the cancerous tumor are determined and whether the tumor has metastasized and spread to other places, and the gradation also helps in planning therapeutic procedures.
11. Genetic or genetic tests
If one or more genetic conditions of breast cancer run in the family, blood tests can help detect the defective gene or defects in other genes that are passed from one generation to the next in the family.
These tests often yield inconclusive results and sho
