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breast self exam resources

breast self exam

Searching for other references with reference to breast self exam or breast cancer detection? Breast cancer is a horrific thing, and this is why we are providing further references pertaining to breast self exam, the genetic background of breast cancer, and more related listings for your reading pleasure. Scan just a little bit farther and you certainly will not only find some good facts regarding breast self exam, but also about lots of additional things also.

Noticing a breast lump or mass, a symptom or sign of breast tissue Carcinoma, is in all likelihood one of a woman's greatest concerns. Luckily, 8 out of 10 breast lumps are benign masses, or in other words, non-cancerous. However, if a female should discover a persistent mass in her breast or any seemingly-abnormal alterations in her breast tissue, it is really vital that she be seen by a doctor immediately. If the mass or lump is malignant the prognosis is very much better if it is discovered early on. This is the reason regular monthly self-exams for carcinoma, regular appointments and visits to the doctor and regularly scheduled mammograms may be useful.

Finding info pertaining to breast self exam is evidently important to you. That's why we are giving the following informational items in regard to breast self exam and too pertaining to cancer of the breast tissue, because breast self exam and breast cancer are both associated areas of interest and should be looked at together.

Carcinoma of the breast tissue is the most common malignant affliction amongst women & has the greatest fatality rate of all carcinomas affecting females. At some period during her life, 1 in every 8 females in the United States of America will get cancer of the breast tissue. This has gone up from about 1 in 1five in 1977. In the United States the risk of acquiring breast cancer is 12.64% by age 95, and the probability of death from the illness is about 3.6% (around 40,000 every year). Tremendously of this risk is incurred in women past the age of 75.

Breast cancer chance factors in order of their importance

1) The mother had breast cancer in both breasts before menopause.
2) The woman's relative had breast cancer and was menopausal.
3) The woman is past age fifty and never experienced pregnancy.
4) Has a history of chronic breast disease.
5) Had radiation.
6) Is extremely overweight.
7) Had her first menstrual period very early in her life.
8) Did not experience menopause until later in her life.
9) Has menstrual cycle irregularities.

It needs to be become stated that artificially started menopause pre age thirty-five and child bearing prior to age 18 might give some protection from breast tumor.

Since you are attempting to locate resources concerning breast self exam you will likely be interested in additional references with regard to the risks of breast cancer. The risk of breast cancer is increased if there is a history in the family of the disease. If a woman's parent or sister has breast cancer it increases to double or triple a woman's probability of developing the cancerous disease. If a more distant relative than a parent or sibling has the disease it increases the risk just a little. In some breast cancer trials it has been established that the probability was more in women with relatives who got breast cancer in both breasts or whose cancer was originally diagnosed earlier in life (prior to menopause). When two or more of a woman's mother, father, or siblings have breast cancer the risk can be up to 5 or even 6 times greater.

Since you have conveyed an interest in listings with respect to breast self exam we at My Breast Cancer were thinking you might find the ensuing facts useful as well. Women who use oral contraceptives carry a very tiny increase in the probability of producing breast tissue cancer (roughly a 0.00005% increase - ie., 5 additional cases per one hundred thousand females). The increased risk most often occurs in the period of time the women are actually ingesting the oral birth control devices. The increase in probability decreases during the ten-year time after the women stop using the contraceptive devices. Also, women that begin relying on oral contraceptive devices earlier than the age of 20 carry the largest increase in the chance of getting cancer of the breast. Even so, this increased risk is still super low.

Symptoms and Signs of Breast Cancer

Besides resources for breast self exam you could also find this information very interesting. Somewhere in the neighborhood eighty percent and 90 percent of all breast cancers are first felt by breast self-examination, or accidentally by the person, as a lump in the breast. In the further 10% to 20 percent of breast tissue carcinoma patients the women will indicate one or more of the following signs and symptoms: a history of breast tissue pain while forgoing any noticeable lumps, breast tissue enlargement, or a thickening in the breast itself.

If you are looking for listings on breast self exam you you may also wish to have more information in relation to breast tumor symptoms and signs during a normal physical exam. Generally during physical examination of a breast tissue cancer patient a lump or mass clearly dissimilar from the bordering breast will be present. In benign masses there can be some dispersed (spread out) fibrotic alterations noticed in 1 quadrant (a fourth of a breast). In benign this would certainly most often be in the upper outer quadrant. If there is a somewhat firmer thickening of merely a single breast (not both breasts) it could be a preindication of a malignant condition.

More advanced breast cancerous diseases are characterized by one or more of the following: fixation of the lump or mass to the pectoral region, fixing of the lump to overlying skin on the breast, by the presence of cysts or ulcers in the breast tissue skin, or by an increase of the usual skin marks resulting from puffiness due to an obstruction of the lymphatics (lymphedema). If lymph nodules are fixed or pathologic in either the area of the underarm/axilla or armpit (axillary region) or higher or below the collar bone (above the collar bone or infraclavicular areas), surgical procedures are not very likely to remedy the cancer symptoms. Particularly virulent (powerful and infectious) is inflammatory breast cancer. Inflammatory breast carcinoma normally causes inflammation in a major region of the breast which likewise causes an elargement of the breast. Often there is no perceptible mass.

Breast Carcinoma Treatment

Since you are interested in breast self exam you may find this relevant likewise. To a large degree, the treatment of choice depends entirely on the age of the patient and the advanced stage of the disease. Palliative treatment (relieving the painfulness while forgoing healing the illness) is all that may be anticipated after there is evidence of substantive involvement of axillary (underarm - armpit), supraclavicular (above the clavicle), or interior mammary lymph nodules or of more encompassing metastatic cancerous spread. Metastatic spread normally relates to a spread of the disease by the lymphatic system or the bloodstream. When there is no proof of this spread (or, at the most, signs & symptoms of minimal involvement of the axillary lymph nodules on the affected side), the normal treatment of choice is complete removing of the cancerous breast, or mastectomy, the musculus pectoralis which are below the breast, and the contents of the armpit on the involved breast side.

Modified radical mastectomy is becoming increasingly received as an different choice to the accepted radical mastectomy for the treatment of all primary operable breast cancerous tumors. The modified radical mastectomy removes all of the breast tissue as in the radical mastectomy, but does not take away the greater pectoral muscle. This does away with the neccessity for a skin grafting. Survival time is the same whether a modified radical mastectomy or a radical mastectomy has been executed. The difference is that with the modified radical mastectomy breast reconstruction is well easier since the greater pectoralis muscles is still in place.

Treatment of Metastatic Disease

Breast cancer may metastasise (spread by the lymphatics or circulatory system) to about any organ in the entire body. However, the most seen regions of metastasis are the lung tissue, liver, bone cells, lymph nodules, skin (mostly in the vicinity of the breast tissue surgery), nervous system, and scalp. Because the spreading, or metastasis, of the disease frequently occurs many years after the treatment of breast tumor, any symptoms should cause one to search for further testing.

If you are interested in knowing more involving breast self exam or breast tumor as a whole you could go to the National Cancer Institute's Publications Locator area for breast cancer and other cancer publications.

American Cancer Society Information

Clinical Trials Information: Find a Clinical Trial

Email Information: Contact the American Cancer Society

National Cancer Institute Contact Information

Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237), 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time
TTY: 1-800-332-8615
Email: cancergovstaff@mail.nih.gov  

National Cancer Institute Web Site: http://www.cancer.gov/

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