Aug
17
2007
According to most sources, breast cancer is ‘cancer of the breast tissue’. Not very helpful. But digging a little deeper makes the answer clear. Cancer is a malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal or uncontrolled cell division. Normal cells become misshapen and grow too rapidly. The result is a mass or lump that continues [...]
Aug
17
2007
No area of oncology is more complex and controversial than the relationship of cancer and diet. Everyone would like to believe that there is some diet which can substantially affect the likelihood of cancer, or better still to cure it once contracted. But to date, the evidence of the effect of diet is unclear and [...]
Aug
16
2007
Though still an area of active research, many lifestyle and environmental risk factors for breast cancer have been identified. Fortunately, almost all of them are controllable by an individual seeking to optimize his or her health. Yes, men get breast cancer, too, at about 1/133 the rate of women.
Women who have had no children prior [...]
Aug
15
2007
According to official figures, only between 5-10% of breast cancer is caused by genetic influences. But even though the percentage is relatively low, the numbers are high enough to warrant many women and men seeking regular checkups. Yes, men get breast cancer, too. Only about 0.7% as often as women, but it does occur, killing [...]
Aug
14
2007
Medical professionals now have an extensive array of tools at their disposal to make diagnosis of breast cancer more reliable, especially in the early stages. That’s great news, since it considerably increases the odds of keeping breast cancer down to the level of ’serious but not permanently scarring or life-threatening’.
Diagnosis will usually start with a [...]
Aug
13
2007
Overall, about 1 in 12 women will contract breast cancer at some age, with the odds higher later in life. But thanks to modern medicine, many breast cancers can be successfully treated with only minor impact. However, the success of that treatment depends critically on early detection, and the earlier the better. One simple way [...]
Aug
12
2007
In those tragic cases where a full mastectomy is required to treat breast cancer, reconstruction is a welcome option. With modern techniques and materials it is possible to restore appearance to a near invisible state. Carried out by specialized plastic surgeons, restoration is now commonplace.
There are a variety of approaches and each case is unique. [...]
Aug
12
2007
Breast cancer remains a serious condition, affecting one in twelve women sometime in their lifetime. But, fortunately, it is no longer typically life threatening or permanently scarring.
Breast cancer, like all cancers, were once very mysterious. While much remains unknown and an area of active research, the disease itself is fairly well understood. The underlying causes [...]
Aug
11
2007
About one in twelve women will develop breast cancer sometime in her life. There are numerous risk factors for contracting breast cancer, some within your control and some that are not. Fortunately, for those factors that are in your control, no great sacrifice is required to minimize them.
Diet
Eating a healthy diet is the first, and [...]
Aug
10
2007
The overall average of five-year survival rate for women who contract breast cancer is around 86% for those whose disease has not metastasized. That means, 86% of the women who contract it survive for at least five years. But even that fairly high number is just an overall average. The numbers are even better for [...]
Aug
09
2007
Experts agree that for most breast cancer cases, chemotherapy is not the first treatment of choice. But for those for whom it is appropriate, it can provide effective, long term results.
Chemotherapy consists of using drugs to combat cancer. With the increasing sophistication of pharmacology, those drugs are safer, more effective and more targeted, with fewer [...]
Aug
07
2007
Radiation therapy remains one of the most common tools for breast cancer treatment, but it has been refined considerably over the years.
Radiation therapy comes in two basic types: internal or external.
External radiation treatments consist of an energetic, highly focused beam used to destroy cancer cells and surrounding tissue. Though the beam is invisible to the [...]
Aug
06
2007
The prospect of surgery is never pleasant. But fortunately, breast cancer surgery today is more targeted than in years past. That leads to less scarring and quicker recovery, at the same time providing an effective treatment to lower the odds of recurrence.
Diagnostic tools are more precise and the disease is better understood. Traditional options still [...]
Aug
05
2007
About 1 in 12 women will contract breast cancer some time during their life, with the odds increasing as they age. But with modern medicine, treatment can be relatively simple and effective. Key to that success, though, is early detection. A regular mammogram is one traditional and still highly useful tool to do so.
A mammogram [...]
Feb
13
2007
A diagnosis of breast cancer can make you feel defenseless, afraid, no, terrified. With the many advances of made in early detection and new, modern therapy, the survival rate for women with breast cancer is 97 percent. If the cancer is found in later stages, the survival rate is still 87 percent. Breast cancer is [...]