Introduction

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women which begins in a small confined area of the breast, most especially the milk-producing gland (lobular carcinoma) or the ducts (ductal carcinoma) which move towards the nipple. It may spread to lymph nodes if not detected early.

How To Recognize Breast Cancer

The most common symptom of breast cancer is a new lump or mass. A painless, hard mass that has irregular edges is more likely to be cancer, but breast cancers can be tender, soft, or round. They can even be painful. The following symptoms and signs could signify the presence of breast cancer in women.

• Lump in the breast or underarm
• Skin texture around the breast and scaly skin around the nipple. These changes may cause itching.
• Breast changes cause the skin to have a red, purple, or bluish tint color.
• Swelling in the breast, collarbone, or armpit
• Thin or thick milky, yellow, green, or red nipple discharge. This may be caused by breast infections, a side effect of birth control pills, and certain medical conditions.
• Changes in nipple shape which may cause breast dimpling, nipple inversion, or retraction.

Detecting Cancer Early

Every woman needs to know what their breast looks like i.e., the shape, size, and color of their breast would make it easier for them to notice any form of changes surrounding their breasts. This would help detect breast cancer at its earlier stages.

Detecting breast cancer early is very fundamental in treating and surviving the disease.

1. Breast Self – Examinations

Breast self-exam, or regularly examining your breasts on your own, can be an important way to find breast cancer early when it’s more likely to be treated successfully. While no single test can detect all breast cancers early, it is believed that performing breast self-exams in combination with other screening methods can increase the odds of early detection.

2. Imaging

These imaging tests can help to detect breast cancer in the body.

• Mammograms
• Breast Ultrasound
• Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

3. Histology

Biopsy

A breast biopsy is a test that removes tissue or sometimes fluid from the suspicious area. The removed cells are examined under a microscope and further tested to check for the presence of breast cancer. A biopsy is the only diagnostic procedure that can determine if the suspicious area is cancerous. It is done by placing a needle through the skin into the breast to remove the tissue sample or probably through a minor surgical operation.

How Can Breast Cancer Be Prevented?

Breast cancer prevention is an action taken to lower the chance of getting breast cancer. By preventing breast cancer, new cases would drastically reduce the entire world population and also lower the number of fatalities caused by breast cancer.

Breast cancer can be prevented through primary and secondary preventive measures.

Primary Form of Prevention

These are the various risk factors associated with breast cancer and the recommended solution to help prevent them.

Age: Old age is the main risk for breast cancer among women. Although getting older is an uncontrollable factor for every woman, the chances of getting breast cancer increase as a woman grows older most especially from the ages of 50 and above. Recommendation – Screening. This is the most important way to prevent breast cancer. It is recommended that women get their breasts screened regularly, especially between the ages of 40 – 80 years.

Family History or Inherited Risk of Breast Cancer: Women with a family history of a first–degree relative (mother, sister) who had breast cancer, have an increased risk of having breast cancer. This sometimes occurs when cancer has occurred before their menopause. Recommendation – Screening. This is the most important way to prevent breast cancer. It is recommended that women get their breasts screened regularly, especially between the ages of 40 and 80 years.

Exposure of Breast Tissue to Estrogen Made in The Body: Estrogen is a hormone made by the body. It helps the body develop and maintain female sex characteristics. Being exposed to estrogen over a long time may increase the risk of breast cancer. Estrogen levels are highest during the years a woman is menstruating, has never given birth, or had one’s first child at an older age. Because estrogen levels are lower during pregnancy, breast tissue is exposed to more estrogen in women who become pregnant for the first time after age 35 or who never become pregnant.

Recommendation – early pregnancy. Estrogen levels are lower during pregnancy. Women who have a full-term pregnancy before age 20 have a lower risk of breast cancer than women who have not had children or who give birth to their first child after age 35. Also, breastfeeding helps to lower the level of estrogen in the body.

Obesity: Obesity increases the risk of breast cancer, especially in postmenopausal women who have not used hormone replacement therapy. Recommendation – weight control and exercise. Losing or controlling one’s weight with regular exercise can help lower the risk of breast cancer.

Alcohol: Regular drinking especially more than one drink a day increases the risk of breast cancer. Recommendation - Limit or Skip Alcohol. It is highly recommended that women should have no more than 1 alcoholic drink a day to reduce the risk of having breast cancer.

Secondary Form of Prevention

In preventing breast cancer among women, getting screened for breast cancer helps to detect if there is a presence of cancerous cells in the breast. This would help the judgment of the patient to seek treatment early and prevent death from such disease.

How Can Breast Cancer Be Properly Managed?

When managing a woman diagnosed with breast cancer, it is important for the doctor attending to her at the moment to advise her on the best way to manage the disease either through the best and appropriate treatment options available or through various preventive methods.

What Treatment Options Are Available for Breast Cancer?

The treatment options available to breast cancer patients are mostly affected by personal preferences and other information about breast cancer, and these include:

• The age and overall health status of the patient
• If the woman is going through menopause or not
• The pace at which the disease is growing and expanding
• The cancer cells containing hormone receptors

The treatment options for breast cancer that are available include:

Neoadjuvant Therapy

Most often, these cancers are treated with Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (before surgery). This helps to shrink the tumor enough for a woman to have breast-conserving surgery (BCS). If the tumor doesn’t shrink enough, a mastectomy is done.

Surgery

This is the use of operations to treat breast cancer. It is the removal of tumors found in the breast, and also some surrounding healthy cells during an operation. There are different types of surgical operations used for breast cancer.

• Lumpectomy: This is also referred to as breast-conserving surgery (BCS) where the surgeon removes the tumor and a small amount of normal breast tissue around it. It is usually done when breast cancer is at stages 0, I, and II.
• Simple Mastectomy: This is a surgical operation done to remove all breast tissues in the breast. This is done when the tumors in the breast may be larger than expected.
• Sentinel Node Biopsy: Whenever the spread of cancer to the lymph nodes cannot be determined, a sentinel node biopsy is performed whereby allowing the removal of some lymph nodes to receive lymph drainage from the tumor.
• Axillary Lymph Node Dissection: Once cancer is found in the sentinel lymph nodes, additional lymph nodes are removed from the armpit.
• Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy: When there is a strong family history of cancer, increasing the risk of breast cancer, certain women with cancer in one breast may choose to have the other healthy breast removed.

Radiation Therapy

This is the use of high-powered energy and other particles to kill cancer cells in the body. It is typically done using a large machine that aims energy beams toward the cancer location at the body (external beam radiation). Also, it can be done inside the body by placing radioactive materials inside the body i.e., brachytherapy.

Chemotherapy

This is the use of drugs to destroy cancerous cells from growing, dividing, and creating more harmful cells. It is sometimes given before surgery to shrink larger tumors and make surgery easier, and also after surgery to decrease the chances of cancer reoccurring.

Hormonal Therapy

This is also called endocrine therapy. It is a hormone-blocking therapy used to treat breast cancer that is quite sensitive to hormones either estrogen or progesterone receptors. It can be used before or after surgery or other breast cancer treatments to decrease the chance of reoccurring cancer.

Targeted Therapy

This is a breast cancer treatment that targets specific abnormalities, proteins, or tissue environment within the cancer cells contributing to the survival and growth of cancer. This treatment is different from chemotherapy, blocking the growth and spread of cancer cells, and limiting its damage to healthy cells.

Immunotherapy

This is the use of the body’s natural immune system to fight cancer by improving the immune system’s ability to attack cancer cells. The body's disease-fighting immune system may not attack cancer because the cancer cells produce proteins that blind the immune system cells but immunotherapy works by interfering with that process.