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Breast cancer is one of the most common and deadliest cancers in women. During a lifetime, every eight’s woman is expected to acquire breast cancer.
Our body is made of cells that grow and divide to keep the body healthy. However, an abnormal division of cells causes a tumor, which may subsequently attain the capacity to spread to other tissues of body and become malignant. Malignant tumor is same as cancer. Breast cancer arises when malignant tumor forms in the breast tissue.
Breast cancer grows slowly producing no symptoms for years initially. By the time you can feel the lump, it has already been growing for 5 to 10 years and all this time, it had been asymptomatic. Thus, the only way to detect it early is to go for regular screening. All women in 20s and 30s should get a breast cancer screening every 3 years and thereafter every year.
Breast cancer is not infectious or transmittable. You cannot ‘catch’ it from a woman who has it. It develops within the body and the likelihood of its occurrence increases with the following factors:
- The family history of breast cancer
- Dense breast tissues
- Early onset of menstrual cycle
- Late menopause
- Heavy smoking or alcohol consumption
- If you had your first baby after age 30 or never had it
- If you used hormone replacement therapy for more than 5 years
- Obesity
The best chance you have to fight breast cancer is to detect it early and treat it early.
You can detect breast cancer by going for diagnostic mammography, which can spot any abnormality in the breasts. In case of abnormalities like solid mass in mammography, get an ultrasound, which will reveal if the solid mass is cancer or a fluid-filled cyst. If the results of mammography or ultrasound suspect the presence of cancer, you need to undergo a biopsy to confirm it. Once confirmed, the treatment options for breast cancer involve chemotherapy, radiation therapy or surgery. The sooner the breast cancer is detected the better are the chances of treatment.
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