6 Surprising Facts About Breast Cancer (PART 1) ~ Bloggerin Info

YOU HEAR IT from all sides: a woman must take responsibility for her health by sifting through available information and making her own decisions. But a lot of what's reported on breast cancer these days is contradictory, misleading or simply wrong.

Dr.Cornelia J. Baines of the University of Toronto, a well-known breast cancer researcher, says women have been led astray by misinformation; they've been taught to fear breast cancer instead of learning the truth.

Here are some of the most important---and often underreported---facts about breast cancer.

FACT:
1. Breast Cancer Strikes Mostly Older Women

By seeing young women in articles,on TV news features and in public-service announcements about breast cancer, women receive the unspoken message that this is mainly a young person's problem. As a result, studies find that young women are overly terrified of the disease, while older women seem less concerned.

While breast cancer is more aggressive in younger women, most women who have breast cancer diagnosed are age 50 or older. In fact, age is the stronger risk factor for thin disease, far ahead of more commonly reported risks such as early menstruation, having no children or a first child after age 30, or starting menopause late.

This does not mean, however, that women over 50 face a breast-cancer "epidemic".in the United States, a statistic that's burned itself into almost every woman's consciousness is that her chance of getting breast cancer is one in height. But this refers to her lifetime risk. According to the most recent figures from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI), the chance of developing breast cancer by age 50 is actually one in 50; by age 60 it's one in 24.

"For every woman who dies of breast cancer in North America, eight will die of cardiovascular disease," Baines says.

FACT:
2. There's More Than One Kind of Breast Cancer

Confusion arises because breast cancer can take many forms. For example, a few rare malignancies are so aggresive, they'll kill the victim even if they're identified on a mammogram when they're very small. Others are so slow-growing, they won't be fatal even if they're not diagnosed for years. Still others start out as treatable tumors that can become more dangerous to treat as they grow.

A condition known as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is the most confusing because it's considered "precancer." Cancer cells multiply and rampage through the body. But DCIS,which occurs in the milk ducts, often stays put. In some cases these precancerous cells break out of the ducts and become cancerous. It's estimated that three out of four DCIS cases will remain harmless, while the fourth will develop into invansive cancer. Unfortunately, doctors can't distinguish the first type from the second.

In most cases, to forestall any chance the cells will leave the ducts, doctors perform either a lumpectomy or a partial or complete mastectomy. An estimated 9200 of the 23,000 American women who had DCIS diagnosed in 1993 (the latest year for which figures are available) had a mastectomy---even though no one knows whether or not they would have had cancer.

Equally unsettling, DCIS is tricky to diagnose. In one study, six experts viewing slides disagreed on a DCIS diagnosis in a substantial number of cases. So if this condition is diagnosed, it's advisable to obtain your pathology report and get a second---and possibility third---opinion before having surgery.

FACT
3. Tamoxifen Is a Real Advance but Not a Magic Bullet

Euphoria hit last spring with the discovery that the drug tamoxifen---used after surgery to prevent the recurrence of breast cancer---could also prevent its occurence in the first place. In a widely heralded trial, preliminary results showed tamoxifen reduced the incidence of invasive breast cancer by 45 percent in high-risk women, compared with those talking a placebo. Formal trail results released in September strongly confirmed these findings. But candidates for this treatment should consider the drug's potential benefits and side effects.

Based on the study's results, the NCI's Dr. Leslie Ford estimates that if 1000 high-risk women over age 50 took tamoxifen for five years, the drug would prevent 17 cases of invasive breast cancer (out of 33 expected). But it would also cause 12 cases of endometrial cancer and ten cases of serious blood clots or strokes.

to be continued - 6 Surprising Facts About Breast Cancer (PART 2)