Breast Cancer Awareness

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with breast cancer, it's important to understand some basics: What is breast cancer and how does it happen?

In this section, you can learn about how breast cancer develops, how many people get breast cancer, and what factors can increase risk for getting breast cancer. You also can learn more about signs and symptoms to watch for and how to manage any fears you may have about breast cancer.

Breast cancer is an uncontrolled growth of breast cells. To better understand breast cancer, it helps to understand how any cancer can develop.

Cancer occurs as a result of mutations, or abnormal changes, in the genes responsible for regulating the growth of cells and keeping them healthy. The genes are in each cell’s nucleus, which acts as the “control room” of each cell. Normally, the cells in our bodies replace themselves through an orderly process of cell growth: healthy new cells take over as old ones die out. But over time, mutations can “turn on” certain genes and “turn off” others in a cell. That changed cell gains the ability to keep dividing without control or order, producing more cells just like it and forming a tumor.

A tumor can be benign (not dangerous to health) or malignant (has the potential to be dangerous). Benign tumors are not considered cancerous: their cells are close to normal in appearance, they grow slowly, and they do not invade nearby tissues or spread to other parts of the body. Malignant tumors are cancerous. Left unchecked, malignant cells eventually can spread beyond the original tumor to other parts of the body.

The term “breast cancer” refers to a malignant tumor that has developed from cells in the breast. Usually breast cancer either begins in the cells of the lobules, which are the milk-producing glands, or the ducts, the passages that drain milk from the lobules to the nipple. Less commonly, breast cancer can begin in the stromal tissues, which include the fatty and fibrous connective tissues of the breast.Over time, cancer cells can invade nearby healthy breast tissue and make their way into the underarm lymph nodes, small organs that filter out foreign substances in the body. If cancer cells get into the lymph nodes, they then have a pathway into other parts of the body. The breast cancer’s stage refers to how far the cancer cells have spread beyond the original tumor.

Breast cancer is always caused by a genetic abnormality (a “mistake” in the genetic material). However, only 5-10% of cancers are due to an abnormality inherited from your mother or father. About 90% of breast cancers are due to genetic abnormalities that happen as a result of the aging process and the “wear and tear” of life in general.

While there are steps every person can take to help the body stay as healthy as possible (such as eating a balanced diet, not smoking, limiting alcohol, and exercising regularly), breast cancer is never anyone's fault. Feeling guilty, or telling yourself that breast cancer happened because of something you or anyone else did, is not productive.

Initially, breast cancer may not cause any symptoms. A lump may be too small for you to feel or to cause any unusual changes you can notice on your own. Often, an abnormal area turns up on a screening mammogram (x-ray of the breast), which leads to further testing.

In some cases, however, the first sign of breast cancer is a new lump or mass in the breast that you or your doctor can feel. A lump that is painless, hard, and has uneven edges is more likely to be cancer. But sometimes cancers can be tender, soft, and rounded. So it's important to have anything unusual checked by your doctor.

According to the American Cancer Society, any of the following unusual changes in the breast can be a symptom of breast cancer:

* swelling of all or part of the breast
* skin irritation or dimpling
* breast pain
* nipple pain or the nipple turning inward
* redness, scaliness, or thickening of the nipple or breast skin
* a nipple discharge other than breast milk
* a lump in the underarm area

These changes also can be signs of less serious conditions that are not cancerous, such as an infection or a cyst. It’s important to get any breast changes checked out promptly by a doctor.

So many women you know may have had breast cancer — friends and neighbors, coworkers, relatives. It seems as if every time you turn around, breast cancer is being talked about in the newspaper or on TV. You may be fearful of developing breast cancer for the first time or of receiving a diagnosis after a mammogram or other testing. If you’ve had breast cancer, you may be fearful of a possible recurrence or even of the possibility that breast cancer could take your life.

Even though you may have some of these fears, you are not necessarily going to get breast cancer. If you have had breast cancer before, it doesn’t mean that the cancer will recur. Still, it's normal to have concerns about a disease that you hear about and see around you relatively often — and that you may have experienced yourself or through a loved one. Don't let the discussion of fear in this section feed into your own fears.

Just remember knowledge is power!

Reference:breastcancer.org research news

GOD BLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!



T8MSW9QF949V