Breast Cancer


Rita Wilson Diagnosed With Breast Cancer

Breast cancer affects one in eight women during their lives. Breast cancer kills more women in the United States than any cancer except lung cancer. No one knows why some women get breast cancer, but there are a number of risk factors. Risks that you cannot change include

Age - the chance of getting breast cancer rises as a woman gets older
Genes - there are two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, that greatly increase the risk. Women who have family members with breast or ovarian cancer may wish to be tested.
Personal factors - beginning periods before age 12 or going through menopause after age 55

Other risks include being overweight, using hormone replacement therapy (also called menopausal hormone therapy), taking birth control pills, drinking alcohol, not having children or having your first child after age 35 or having dense breasts.

Symptoms of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in size or shape of the breast or discharge from a nipple. Breast self-exam and mammography can help find breast cancer early when it is most treatable. Treatment may consist of radiation, lumpectomy, mastectomy, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.

Men can have breast cancer, too, but the number of cases is small.

Signs and symptoms of breast cancer may include:

  • A breast lump or thickening that feels different from the surrounding tissue
  • Bloody discharge from the nipple
  • Change in the size, shape or appearance of a breast
  • Changes to the skin over the breast, such as dimpling
  • A newly inverted nipple
  • Peeling, scaling or flaking of the pigmented area of skin surrounding the nipple (areola) or breast skin Redness or pitting of the skin over your breast, like the skin of an orange



What is prevention?

Cancer prevention is action taken to lower the chance of getting cancer. By preventing cancer, the number of new cases of cancer in a group or population is lowered. Hopefully, this will lower the number of deaths caused by cancer.

To prevent new cancers from starting, scientists look at risk factors and protective factors. Anything that increases your chance of developing cancer is called a cancer risk factor; anything that decreases your chance of developing cancer is called a cancer protective factor.

Some risk factors for cancer can be avoided, but many cannot. For example, both smoking and inheriting certain genes are risk factors for some types of cancer, but only smoking can be avoided. Regular exercise and a healthy diet may be protective factors for some types of cancer. Avoiding risk factors and increasing protective factors may lower your risk but it does not mean that you will not get cancer.

Different ways to prevent cancer are being studied, including:

  • Changing lifestyle or eating habits.
  • Avoiding things known to cause cancer.
  • Taking medicine to treat a precancerous condition or to keep cancer from starting.

Breast Cancer Prevention
Key Points
    • Avoiding risk factors and increasing protective factors may help prevent cancer.
    • The following are risk factors for breast cancer:
    • Older age
    • A personal history of breast cancer or benign (noncancer) breast disease
    • A family history of breast cancer
    • Inherited gene changes
    • Dense breasts
    • Exposure of breast tissue to estrogen made in the body
    • Taking hormone therapy for symptoms of menopause
    • Radiation therapy to the breast or chest
    • Obesity
    •  Drinking alcohol
    • Being white
    • The following are protective factors for breast cancer:
    • Less exposure of breast tissue to estrogen made by the body
    • Taking estrogen-only hormone therapy after hysterectomy, selective estrogen receptor modulators, or aromatase inhibitors and inactivators
    • Estrogen-only hormone therapy after hysterectomy
    • Selective estrogen receptor modulators
    • Aromatase inhibitors and inactivators
    • Risk-reducing mastectomy
    • Ovarian ablation
    • Getting enough exercise
    • It is not clear whether the following affect the risk of breast cancer:
    • Oral contraceptives
    • Environment
    • The following do not affect the risk of breast cancer.
    • Cancer prevention clinical trials are used to study ways to prevent cancer.
    • New ways to prevent breast cancer are being studied in clinical trials.