Breast Cancer Information

Firstly breast cancer is a malignant tumor and is found by women in cells that begin in their breasts.  A woman’s breast is made up of a number of lobules (these glands make milk), ducts (tiny tubes which connect lobules to the nipple), blood and lymph vessels and also fatty connective tissue.

It is normally found that cancer begins in the ducts, but is occasionally found to have begun in either the lobules or other tissue in the breasts.  Although lymph vessels are similar to veins (but they do not carry blood but lymph, which is a transparent liquid that carries immune system cells and also was products as well).  You will find that lymph vessels lead to a group of cells called nymph nodes and that that lead from the breast can lead to the lymph’s under your arms called axillary nodes.

Unfortunately it breast cancer cells are able to get to the axillary nodes in your arms and are able to keep growing this will result in a swelling of the nodes.  However, if the cancer reaches the underarm nodes it is more likely to spread further and reach other organs and tissues within your body.

What is a benign Breast Lump?

Many women who find that they have a lump in their breast discover it is benign (means it is not cancerous).  In fact a benign tumor is an abnormal growth in the breast and they can not spread to other organs in the body and are therefore not dangerous.  However, if you do discover such a lump you may that you could have increased risk of actually developing breast cancer in the future.

There are numerous types of breast cancer and below are provided details of them.

Firstly we have carcinoma in situ, which often refers to the early stage of breast cancer before it breaks out from the organ where it started.  In respect of breast cancer this form is usually limited to the ducts or lobules and will not have spread to the fatty tissue or to other tissues outside the breast.

The next is ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and is the most common type of early stage breast cancer.  This form normally has not spread outside the ducts of the breast and at this point of diagnosis most women can be cured.  The most effective way of DCIS being discovered is by the patient having a mammogram.

Then there is lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) which starts in lobules but does not spread outside their walls.  Although this is not actually a cancer there is an increased risk for women who are diagnosed with this of developing breast cancer at a later stage.  That is why it is extremely important for women who have been diagnosed with LCIS to be regularly tested for breast cancer.

The next form of breast cancer and which is the most common is infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDC) and although it begins in the breast ducts it can infiltrate into the fatty tissue as well and then spread further to other organs of the body.
Then there is infiltrating lobular carcinoma (ILC) which as its name suggests starts in the lobules of the breast and can also spread further to other organs and tissues in the body.

Although breast cancer is the most frequent type of cancer to be found among women, except for skin cancer.  In fact it is the second most important cause of death of women from cancer diseases, the first being lung cancer.
In the USA alone about 212,920 women are likely to develop infiltrating breast cancer in 2006 and about 40,970 will probably die from it in 2006.  At present there are currently over 2,000,000 women only in the USA who have been receiving treatment for breast cancer.

It is said about 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer at some point in their life’s and 1 in 33 women will die from it.  Luckily the number of deaths caused by breast cancer is decreasing because of the improvement in the time it takes to discover the cancer and then to treat it successfully.