A National Cancer Institute (NCI) report estimates that approximately one in eight women in the United States (approximately 13.4 percent) will develop breast cancer, a disease in which cells in the breast start to grow abnormally in an uncontrolled manner, during her lifetime. Early detection can help save your life....

Causes
The exact cause of breast cancer is unknown; however, female hormones and increasing age play a part.

Symptoms

• A lump or thickening in the breast or armpit that is new or unusual

• A change in the size or shape of the breast

• Skin changes, such as a dimple or pucker, in the skin of the breast

• Discharge or bleeding from the nipple that comes out without squeezing the nipple (spontaneous discharge)

• A change in the nipple, such as a nipple that is now drawn inward (retraction or inversion)

• Scaling or crusting of the nipple

• A change in the color or feel of the skin of the breast or the darker area around the nipple (areola)

• A breast lump in an adult man. About 1 percent of all breast cancer occurs in adult men

Diagnosis
If breast cancer is suspected, a biopsy, to confirm the diagnosis, is performed. A biopsy can be done by inserting a needle into the breast lump or the area that looks suspicious on a mammogram or by removing the entire suspicious area with a scalpel. The piece of tissue is then analyzed by a pathologist, under a microscope, to see whether cancer is present.

Available Treatments

• Surgery to remove the cancer: breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy) to remove just the area of cancer or a mastectomy, which entails removing the entire breast

• Radiation therapy or chemotherapy

• Hormone therapy with tamoxifen or an aromatase inhibitor

• Biological therapy with monoclonal antibodies that block the protein HER-2

Mary Whitmore
Sources: National Institutes of Health, Healthwise

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