“Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide and afflicts two of every three families. ” (Zelman, M. , Holdaway, P. , Tompary, E. , Raymond, J. & Mulvihill, M. L. , 2010). Breast cancer is the most frequent diagnosed cancer in women. More than one million cases occur worldwide annually (Zelman, M. , Holdaway, P. , Tompary, E. , Raymond, J. & Mulvihill, M. L. , 2010). When it comes to breast cancer there are many areas that you should look at to understand, and be aware of.
The areas are to know the cause and risk factors, prevention and detection, the effects on your health, and lastly your treatment options. We will cover each of these areas throughout this essay. When it comes to the cause of breast cancer, there is no real reason on why women get breast cancer or even what causes it, because there are many different types and mutations of cancer that they can’t just say one certain thing causes cancer. So it is really hard to say for sure what the real cause is. There are many different risk factors when it comes to breast cancer.
Some of those risk factors are age, female gender, and personal family history. There also are reproductive factors like long menstrual history, oral contraceptive use, an example would be birth control pills, never having children, or having your first child after the age of 30. There also are some things that reduce your risk and they include being overweight, obesity after menopause, postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy, being physically inactive and lastly if you are an alcoholic meaning that you drink an excess consumption of alcohol.
Another thing that can cause you to be at risk for breast cancer is changes in certain genes like BRCA1, BRCA2, and others. There also are some risk factors that can effort survivors of breast cancer like the risk of recurrence or at risk for a second primary cancer. When looking at prevention and detection of breast cancer, I would have to say that you can’t prevent the onset of breast cancer. “Screenings has been associated with a 30% reduction in breast cancer mortality in populations where mammography has been adopted.
” (“Health-related quality of life during hormone therapy after breast cancer: a randomized trial,” 2011). Ways that women can detect breast cancer are by doing regular self breast exams and mammograms when your doctor tells you it is time to get one done. When doing a self breast exam large tumors are felt as masses on or around the breast. Sometimes you might even have some symptoms of breast cancer like thickening, swelling, distortion, tenderness, skin irritation, and nipples changing.
“Both the American Cancer Society and Turkish Association for Cancer Research and Control recommend that screening methods to reduce breast cancer mortality and morbidity should include breast self examination (BSE), clinical breast examination (CBE) and mammography. ” (“The effects of an educational program on knowledge of breast cancer, early detection practices and health beliefs of nurses and midwives. ” 2010).
To diagnoses you with breast cancer your doctor with look at your clinical history, do a physical examination, and then when they feel breast lumps they will send you for a mammography and/or breast ultrasound after they see some they will do a fine needle aspiration biopsy to see if you lumps are benign, which means it is noncancerous, or it can be malignant, which means cancer and it can consist of rapidly dividing cells that accumulate uncontrollably and have the ability to metastasize (Zelman, M. , Holdaway, P. , Tompary, E., Raymond, J. & Mulvihill, M. L. , 2010).
“Nearly 90% of women who receive breast cancer diagnoses survive at least five years. ” (“Breast Cancer Survivorship and Surveillance,” 2011). “Studies have shown that about 80% of women with breast cancer suffer emotional distress at the time of diagnosis and start of treatment, and 20-30% has remaining problems up to two years after treatment. ” (“The effects of an educational program on knowledge of breast cancer, early detection practices and health beliefs of nurses and midwives. ” 2010).
There are not too many things that effect the health of women with breast cancer, some women suffers from physical, psychological and social symptoms during diagnoses and treatment. Another effect would be that if a woman has a lumpectomy it will limit their mobility of their arms for awhile due to the stitches and healing correctly. Lastly, the effect of breast cancer on your health is with radiation or chemotherapy treatments affect your immune system by weakening it and make it easier for them to get other infections or diseases.
There are different types of treatment options for breast cancer depending on the size of the tumor, stage of breast cancer and even the patient’s preference. There are different types of surgeries that can be done too. One is to have a lumpectomy, which is just removing the tumor or a mastectomy, which is removing the breast. With both surgeries they also remove some axillary lymph nodes which are under the arm. In the early stages of breast cancer a lumpectomy can be done followed by radiation therapy.
Larger tumors normally are removed doing a mastectomy. Chemotherapy, hormone therapy, targeted biologic therapy are used alone or in addition to the surgery and radiation. Due to the mammography and other imagining modalities, more people live longer because the cancer can be caught earlier. When thinking about an effective awareness program, I can’t seem to think of something better then the Breast Cancer Society that we already have or even the fact that we have the whole month of October as Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Things that we should include in it is the importance of screening, description of screening methods, effect of screening on survival, and discussion of recommended screenings. The importance of screening is to get diagnosed earlier instead of waiting until it is either too late to do something or do treatment but you still might not have a really chance to bet it. Also early diagnoses and treatment has demonstrated an increase in cure and survival rate.
Screening methods would include doing a self breast exam at home and if you feel something in question then contact your doctor, having regular mammography’s, ultrasounds, other imagining done like a MRI, or even if a lump is found having a breast biopsy done to see if it is benign or malignant. “Nurses and midwives play a vital role in increasing women’s awareness of early detection and providing adequate information about breast cancer screening. ” (“The effects of an educational program on knowledge of breast cancer, early detection practices and health beliefs of nurses and midwives.
” 2010). The effects of screening have a big effect on survival of woman. “It is estimated that 4. 4 million women are alive today in whom breast cancer was diagnosed with in the last five years. ” (“The effects of designed exercise programmed on quality of life in women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy. ” 2010). Lastly, it is recommended that at the age of 50 women should start having mammograms every year, but it is not sure whether it should be that young of an age or should it be every year.
I recommend that you do what your doctor says and it would not hurt to get check to make sure nothing is wrong. There also is a major problem with women of lower income because they don’t have the money to afford insurance, so they but off having screenings done and due to this their breast cancer is diagnosed at a later stage and treatment for it cost more or they die. If we had coverage for the low income women then it would reduce the deaths due to breast cancer of lower income women.
In conclusion, “Breast cancer may be the second most common non-skin cancer among women. ” (“Breast Cancer Survivorship and Surveillance,” 2011). I can’t say that you can reduce your chances of breast cancer, but you can detect things earlier with the self breast exam and regular mammograms. If you are diagnosed with breast cancer you have different treatment options like lumpectomy and mastectomy depending on stage of cancer with the help of chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and radiation.
“There are at least 2. 4 million breast cancer survivors alive today. ” (“Breast Cancer Survivorship and Surveillance,” 2011). References: Zelman, M. , Holdaway, P. , Tompary, E. , Raymond, J. & Mulvihill, M. L. , (2010) Human diseases: A systemic approach (7th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Breast Cancer Survivorship and Surveillance. (2011, September/October). Radiologic Technology, 83 (1).
Health-related quality of life during hormone therapy after breast cancer: a randomized trail. (2011) Climacteric, (14), 164-170. The effects of an educational program on knowledge of breast cancer, early detection practices and health beliefs of nurses and midwives. (2010, August). Journal of Clinical Nursing, (19), 2363-2371. The effects of designed exercise programmed on quality of life in women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy. (2010, June). Scandinavian of Caring Sciences, (24), 251-258.