Breast Cancer

Early detection is the key

Breast malignancies begin in the milk glands, milk ducts, fatty tissue, or connective tissue of the breast. There are several types of breast cancer, some slow-growing, some aggressive. Those that go undetected or untreated can spread to surrounding breast tissue, then to the lymph nodes under the arm, and then to other parts of the body in a process known as metastasis.

Breast cancer is a serious, potentially fatal illness that will strike one out of every eight women. In fact, in the United States, it is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, behind lung cancer. Because the breast is not a vital organ, death comes not from cancer of the breast but from cancer that has metastasized from the breast to the lymph system and vital organs, most likely the brain, liver, lungs, or bones.

Detected early, however, breast cancer is treatable; some would say curable. In fact, 95% of women whose tumors are detected and treated in the early stages of the illness are still cancer-free five years later. Currently, early detection relies on monthly self-exams, regularly physical checkups, and mammography, the X-ray technique that can spot early tumors before they can be felt.

All women should have yearly mammograms starting at age 40. Women who are at increased risk for breast cancer should be watched especially closely .

Synonyms

  • Mammary carcinoma
  • Carcinoma of the breast
  • Ductal carcinoma
  • Intraductal carcinoma
  • Lobular carcinoma

Detailed Description

Cancer is the unrestricted growth of abnormal cells. Because the breast is not a vital organ, the disease of the breast itself is not that physically remarkable, dangerous, or, often, even noticeable. Rather, it's when the cancer spreads to the vital organs that the disease can become fatal. This is why a discussion of breast cancer often focuses less on the details of breast disease and more on the particulars of diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. Treatment is based on a scientific system of "staging" the disease. There are four basic stages. The type of cancer you have and the stage of your disease will help determine the kind of treatment you receive.

Breast cancer is an emotionally charged and fearful subject for women. Besides being a potentially fatal disease, breast cancer affects a body part that plays an important role in the self-image and sexuality of women in American culture. Treatment must address these concerns.

Currently, breast cancer is treated with the following measures:

  • Surgery
  • Radiation therapy
  • Chemotherapy
  • Hormone therapy
  • Experimental treatments such as bone marrow transplantation
  • Alternative therapies, such a group support, herbal medicines, meditation, nutrition, and yoga, in conjunction with the above treatments

Characteristics of Breast Cancer

Several types of tumors are possible, each of which may behave differently in individual women. The numerous tumor types complicate the decision of what kind of pre- or postoperative therapy will be appropriate.

Ductal carcinoma in situ (cancer of the milk ducts) remains confined to the milk ducts, and lobular carcinoma in situ (cancer of the milk glands) remains confined to the glands. Both diseases are treated very differently, but they have a better outlook than infiltrating (or invasive) ductal carcinoma or infiltrating lobular carcinoma, in which the cancer has spread beyond the ducts or glands to surrounding fatty tissue in the breast or to other organs. Infiltrating ductal carcinoma accounts for about 80% of all breast cancers. In contrast, infiltrating lobular carcinoma accounts for only 10%-15% of invasive breast cancers. Infiltrating ductal and lobular carcinomas are treated similarly.

Other breast cancers include:

  • Medullary carcinoma
  • Tubular carcinoma
  • Inflammatory carcinoma
  • Paget's disease of the nipple

How Common Is Breast Cancer?

It is estimated that one in eight American women will develop breast cancer at some point in her life. Breast cancer rates today are higher than they have ever been, up from only one in 17 women in 1950. Researchers debate whether the increase represents a true rise in the prevalence of the disease, or whether the increase is due to better detection techniques and an increase in public awareness. In any case, the disease remains pervasive, with approximately 150,000 new cases diagnosed annually. The good news, though, is that mortality rates have dropped, thanks to earlier detection and improved treatment.

Most women who develop breast cancer range in age from 30 to 80, with the greatest concentration of cases found in the 45 to 65 age group. A full 99% of those who develop breast cancer are female.

What You Can Expect

The success of breast cancer treatment is measured in terms of survival to five years and survival to 10 years beyond the initial diagnosis and treatment.

Women whose breast cancers are diagnosed in the early stages of the disease will most likely have a localized tumor, one that has not spread to surrounding tissue. When localized tumors are small (less than 1 centimeter across) and are surgically removed, patients have an excellent recovery rate: 95% are cancer-free five years after surgery. The size of the tumor matters, even if it remains localized. For larger localized tumors, the survival rate is lower.

Breast cancer that goes undetected and untreated will spread to surrounding breast tissue, then to the lymph nodes under the arm, then to other parts of the body -- a process known as metastasis. Beyond the lymph nodes, breast cancer generally metastasizes to the brain, lungs, bones, liver, or skin. Fewer than 10% of those with metastasized breast cancer survive beyond five years, although some have lived as long as 10 or 20 years after diagnosis.

Treatment and recovery depend on many factors:

  • The type of tumor
  • The size of the tumor
  • The stage to which the disease has progressed
  • Your age and general health
  • The treatment regimen chosen
  • Your individual response to treatment


Established Causes

No definitive cause for breast cancer has been established.

Theoretical Causes

It is thought that breast cancer may be related to a genetic predisposition: the presence of oncogenes (genes that can trigger normal tissue cells into cancer cells). Dietary fat, alcohol consumption, and environmental factors may one day be found to play a role in causing breast cancer; research is ongoing.

Drugs That Can Cause or Aggravate Breast Cancer

There are a few drugs that may, although rarely, contribute to the development of breast cancer, including hormones such as estrogen replacement therapy and oral contraceptives.

Risk Factors

A number of factors have been associated with an increased risk of breast cancer:

  • Being female
  • Prior history of breast cancer
  • Prior history of breast biopsies revealing atypical changes
  • Prior history of endometrial or ovarian cancer
  • Breast cancer in first-degree relatives such as your mother, sister, or daughter
  • Early menarche (having your first period at a young age)
  • Late menopause
  • Nulliparity (not having any children)
  • First full-term pregnancy after age 30
  • Carrier of BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutations (new tests can identify these genes)
  • More than 50 years of age

The following factors have also been suggested to increase breast cancer risk, but studies remain inconclusive:

  • High dietary fat intake (35% or more of daily calories)
  • Moderate to heavy alcohol consumption
  • Sedentary lifestyle
  • Obesity (40% over ideal body weight)
  • Radiation exposure
  • Exposure to pesticides and other environmental pollutants
  • Estrogen replacement therapy in postmenopausal women

Risk factors are traits or behaviors that may make you statistically more likely than others in the general population to have a certain condition. They are not necessarily "causes" of the condition.


Symptoms

These symptoms may signal breast cancer. If you have any of these signs, see your doctor:

  • A breast lump or thickening that may or may not be painful
  • Change in breast size, shape, or symmetry, for instance, one breast becomes higher
  • Flattening or indentation on skin of breast
  • Dimpling, rippling, or scaling of skin on breast
  • Change in breast skin temperature, most often a warm or hot patch
  • Dark, bloody, or clear nipple discharge
  • Nipple itching, scaling, burning, dimpling, or turning inward
  • Lasting pain or tenderness in breast
  • Swelling in the underarm

Conditions That May Be Mistaken for Breast Cancer

Before biopsy (removing a breast tissue sample to check for cancer), these conditions may be confused with cancer:

  • Cysts (fluid-filled sacs in breast)
  • Fibrocystic breast disease (breast lumpiness, cysts, and breast pain)
  • Lipomas (round or oval fatty lumps under the skin)
  • Mastitis (breast infection, breast is red, swollen and tender)
  • Breast abscess (a pus-filled area in the breast)
  • Fibroadenomas (small, solid breast lumps made of fibrous and glandular tissue)
  • Fat necrosis (lumpy scar tissue that replaces fatty tissue after breast injury)
  • Sclerosing adenosis (hardening of glandular tissue in breast)

How Breast Cancer Is Diagnosed

Regular mammogram screenings and breast self-exams often turn up the first signs of cancer. If a lump or other breast change looks as though it could be cancerous, your doctor will do several tests. First, he or she will perform a physical exam that includes a thorough manual exam of your breasts. Your doctor may also order a mammogram, ultrasound scanning, and a biopsy.

Physical exam

Your doctor will feel your breasts for lumps and look for any dimpling, nipple discharge, or other unusual symptoms. He or she will also check for enlarged lymph nodes in your underarm area, which is where most breast cancers spread first.

Mammography

Your doctor will order a mammogram, a special breast X-ray that can detect possible cancer, even before tumors can be felt. A technologist will compress your breasts, one at a time, between two plates on a mammography machine. X-rays are then passed through the breast to form an image on X-ray film. You may find it uncomfortable to have your breasts flattened, but the test is quick -- only a few minutes.

A mammogram offers one of the best chances to find breast cancer early. Some studies have shown it to detect about 40% of cancers not found by physical exam. However, mammograms are not perfect. They can also miss up to 15% of breast cancers. (Conversely, a physical exam can detect 10% to 20% of masses that are not seen on mammography.)

A mammogram does not tell for sure whether a breast change is cancerous; in fact, many conditions that show up on X-ray turn out to be are harmless. If your doctor remains concerned about breast cancer after your mammogram, he or she will order follow-up tests, such as ultrasound scanning or biopsy, to confirm or rule out the disease.

Ultrasound scanning

If a lump is found through physical exam or mammogram, your doctor may order ultrasound (a test that uses sound waves) to check whether the lump is a fluid-filled sac (cyst) or a solid lump. Cysts usually aren't cancerous, but a solid lump usually requires a biopsy.

Biopsy

During a biopsy, cells or tissue samples are removed from a lump and checked for cancer. There are several types of biopsy. Most can be done on an outpatient basis with local anesthesia:

Fine-needle biopsy (also called aspiration biopsy), in which fluid is extracted from the lump through a needle attached to a syringe. The fluid is checked for cancer cells. If the lump collapses after the fluid is drained, you may have a cyst that needs no further treatment.

Core biopsy, which uses a larger hollow-core needle to remove a "core" out of the lump.

Incisional biopsy, in which a surgeon cuts a small section from the lump.

Excisional biopsy, in which the entire lump is removed surgically.

Stereotactic biopsy is like a needle biopsy, but it's often done when a lesion shows up on mammogram, but no lump can be felt. In this method, mammograms taken from different angles help figure out the exact location of the lesion in your breast. Then a computer aligns a needle with the area to remove a small amount of tissue for studying.

After your biopsy yields cells or tissue samples, a pathologist will view them under a microscope and run other tests to look for cancer. If the tests are positive, your doctor makes a diagnosis of breast cancer. If the tests are negative, your lump is benign, or noncancerous. In more than 70% of biopsies, the lump is benign.

After the Diagnosis: Staging Breast Cancer

If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, your doctor will run tests to find out the tumor's exact location, size, and other characteristics.

Your doctor will also run staging tests to see whether the cancer has spread (metastasized) to other parts of your body. Cancer that remains confined to the breast is much less likely to be fatal than cancer that has spread. Staging not only helps your doctor to know how far your cancer has progressed, but also to plan treatment and determine how likely you are to be cured (prognosis).

During staging tests, you may have a chest X-ray to look for cancer in the lungs, a blood test to check for cancer in the liver, and often, an abdominal CT (computed tomography) scan or ultrasound scan, mainly to check the liver. A more complicated test called a bone scan can detect cancer in the bones.

Your doctor will run an estrogen-receptor test to find out whether the cancer cells are the type that grow when exposed to hormones (a condition more common among postmenopausal than premenopausal women). If so, your cancer might respond to hormone-blocking drugs. After cancer surgery, many women who are estrogen-receptor positive take tamoxifen, a prescription drug that blocks estrogen and prevents hormone-sensitive cancer cells from growing.

Goals of Treatment

Women with breast cancer stand a good chance of beating the disease. Overall, 75% of women with breast cancer remain cancer-free five years after diagnosis. Among women whose cancer is detected at an early stage and treated promptly, the survival rate during the same amount of time rises to as high as 95%. Fortunately, you have many effective treatment options, the main ones being surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormonal therapy. You and your doctor will select therapies aimed at wiping out all cancer cells. Your doctor will also help you to manage the side effects of treatments. Long-term, your doctor will be monitoring your health and checking for any recurrence of cancer for several years following diagnosis.

Treatment Overview

The following therapies are all used to treat breast cancer:

Surgery

  • Lumpectomy is a method in which the surgeon removes just the tumor, along with a small rim of healthy tissue, and leaves the rest of the breast intact. Usually, the surgeon also does an axillary dissection. After making an incision in the armpit, he or she removes from the hollow of the armpit a wad of fat that contains lymph nodes. The lymph nodes are subjected to pathology studies to be certain the cancer has not spread. More and more, surgeons are doing a newer technique called sentinel node biopsy that presents fewer complications. Dye or a radioactive tracer is injected into the tumor bed. Then the first lymph node to take up the substance is removed and examined. Ask your doctor about this less invasive option.

    Also known as breast-conserving surgery, lumpectomy has become more common in the last 10 years as a means of treating small breast cancers, such as early-stage, intraductal cancer (cancer confined to a milk duct). Surgery will most likely be followed with radiation therapy to the lumpectomy site and the remaining breast tissue.
  • Modified radical mastectomy is the most common breast-cancer surgery. The entire breast is removed along with some underarm lymph nodes. This surgery may be followed by radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and hormonal therapy.
  • Simple mastectomy is like a modified radical mastectomy, except the surgeon does not remove armpit lymph nodes. This surgery is used when cancer is scattered throughout the breast, but because the cancer is confined to the ducts, it has almost no chance of spreading to the lymph nodes. Some women also choose a simple mastectomy as a preventive measure if they are at high risk of getting breast cancer.
  • Radical mastectomy, once the only surgery for breast cancer, is a highly invasive surgery that is rarely performed today. It removes the entire breast, as well as underlying chest wall muscles. The surgeon also removes many lymph nodes underneath the armpit to try to stop the spread of cancer there. Today, this surgery is reserved for very large tumors that are connected to the chest wall or have spread to the chest muscle and connective tissues.
  • Breast reconstruction, in which a plastic surgeon rebuilds the breast, can be done at the same time as the mastectomy or at a later date. The plastic surgeon will use a saline implant; silicone implants are currently available only through clinical trials. In a more complex reconstruction, the surgeon may rebuild the breast using tissue taken from other parts of your body, such as the abdomen.

After surgery, you'll likely need more therapy (postoperative treatment) to destroy any cancer cells that remain in the body. Choosing treatment can be complex. No "one-size-fits-all" combination of surgery and postoperative treatment exist. What's more, each regimen presents numerous choices in itself, such as the many chemotherapy drugs to choose from. You and your doctor must work together at each stage of diagnosis and treatment to decide which therapies are best for you. Three standard postoperative therapies are used, often in combination with each other:

Radiation therapy

After surgery, the tumor site and surrounding tissue is irradiated, either from outside the body with high-dose X-rays or from inside the body with radioactive implants, also called "pellets" or "seeds." The latter method, called brachytherapy, is now FDA-approved for treating breast cancer. The goal of both types of radiation is to destroy any remaining cancer cells. (Sometimes radiation is used before surgery to shrink the tumor.)

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy involves potent drugs used alone or in combinations destroy cancer cells that may remain in the body. Chemotherapy can prolong survival time by delaying the return of cancer, or preventing recurrence completely. The most commonly used chemotherapy drugs include:

  • 5-FU (5-fluorouracil)
  • Adriamycin (Doxorubicin)
  • Cytoxan (Cyclophosphamide)
  • Mexate (Methotrexate)
  • Mitoxantrone
  • Taxol (Paclitaxel)
  • Taxotere (Docetaxel)
  • Biological agents: Natural blood components that can help stimulate bone marrow that has been suppressed by chemotherapeutic drugs. Common biological agents include:
    • Leukine (Sargramostim)
    • Neumega (Oprelvekin)
    • Neupogen (Filgrastim)
    • Procrit (Epoetin-alfa)
    • VePesid (Etoposide)

To combat nausea, one possible side effect of some chemo drugs, your doctor may also prescribe:

Hormone-blocking therapy

Estrogen and other hormones can actually nourish some breast cancers. Hormone-blocking drugs, such as tamoxifen, help prevent cancer from returning by interfering with the actions of the hormones that help cancer cells grow.

  • Hormonal agents: Drugs that interfere with hormones that aid the spread of cancer cells:

New treatment in development

New experimental therapies are also available. Bone marrow transplantation, and another procedure (peripheral stem cell transplantation) are currently being studied in clinical trials.

  • Autologous bone marrow transplantation: In this procedure, doctors first collect stem cells from a woman's own ("autologous") bone marrow or from the peripheral blood, then give her high-dose chemotherapy, and last, replace the marrow. By reaping and replacing the marrow cells, doctors are able in advanced cases to deliver high-dose chemotherapy, which blocks rapidly dividing cancer cells, but at the same time destroys bone marrow.

Considerations When Selecting Treatment

Choosing cancer treatment is a complex process that takes place between you and your doctor. Deciding which therapies are right for you depends upon many factors:

  • The type of cancer you have
  • The stage to which the disease has progressed
  • The breast reconstruction you choose, should you decide to have one
  • Whether you are premenopausal or postmenopausal
  • The presence of estrogen receptors or progesterone receptors on tumor cells
  • Your general health (if your health is good, you may be able to undergo the most rigorous treatments, while fragile health might dictate a more conservative approach)
  • Your age

Appropriate Healthcare Setting

Even for advanced-stage breast cancer, many therapies can be done on an outpatient basis. If complications arise or if the disease is terminal, you may need to be hospitalized. Mastectomies and breast reconstruction surgery require hospitalization.

Healthcare Professionals Who May Be Involved in Treatment

Various healthcare professionals may be involved in managing breast cancer:

  • Family physicians
  • General internists
  • Gynecologists
  • Radiologists
  • General surgeons
  • Plastic surgeons
  • Pathologists
  • Medical oncologists
  • Surgical oncologists
  • Radiation oncologists (radiotherapists)

Activity & Diet Recommendations

Activity

After having anesthesia and breast surgery, you can expect to feel very tired for several days. Don't push yourself. Ease back into a normal routine after you've rested.

Depending on the extent of your surgery, you can probably return to many activities fairly soon. If you've had a lumpectomy, you may want to wear a strong support bra day and night for about a week to prevent pain when your breasts move. If you had a mastectomy, your arm on the side of the mastectomy may feel sore, but try to use it normally to prevent stiffness and "frozen shoulder." Just be careful not to use the affected arm to lift anything heavier than five pounds for several days.

In about 10% of mastectomy cases, the woman's arm and hand swell on the side of the mastectomy, a condition called lymphedema That's because removing lymph glands interferes with the body's ability to drain fluids out of your arm. Your doctor will suggest exercises to lessen swelling. They may include:

  • Walking your fingers up a wall as high as you can reach
  • Lifting your arms out and up as high as you can without discomfort (several times a day)
  • Repeated squeezing of a rubber ball

Exercise, combined with elevating your arm, wearing elastic support gloves, and getting massage from a physical therapist, are all measures that can help you to control arm swelling. If your swelling is extreme, tell your doctor. In severe cases, women may find relief by pumping fluid from their arm with an electric pump bought or rented from a medical supply store.

After you've healed from breast cancer surgery, you should be able to go back to any sport or exercise that you enjoyed before surgery. Ask your doctor if you have any concerns about restrictions on your activity.

Diet

If you've had a life-threatening disease, you're likely to become much more aware of your health habits, including what you eat. Countless studies have looked at the relationship between diet and breast cancer. A high-fat diet and the liberal use of alcohol seem to pose some risk, while a diet high in vitamins C and E might help prevent cancer. Most practitioners believe that prevention may be best served with a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables and grains and low in animal fat.

Monitoring the Condition

If you have breast cancer, you will need follow-up care to detect any possible recurrences and to monitor the other breast for a new tumor, which occurs in 10% of breast cancer patients. Cancer comes back most often within the first three years following treatment. During this period, you should see your doctor every three to four months, then every six months for the next two years. Once five years have passed since the original treatment, you should see your doctor every six to 12 months.

Some forms of breast cancer are more likely than others to recur. All women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer should continue to check their breasts monthly and see their doctors for regular mammograms and physical exams. Some doctors do periodic blood tests in hopes of detecting any spread of cancer at its earliest stages, but unfortunately, there's no clear evidence that these blood tests translate into more effective treatment.

Possible Complications

Complications and side effects may arise from some of the conventional treatments used to treat breast cancer.

Postoperative complications may include:

  • Wound infection
  • Swollen lymph nodes
  • Limited shoulder motion
  • Swelling of the arm on the side of the cancer

Chemotherapy complications, which vary with the type of drug used, may include:

  • Nausea and loss of appetite
  • Vomiting
  • Partial or total hair loss
  • Lowered white blood cell count, which increases risk of infection
  • Bladder infection
  • Mouth sores
  • Bleeding gums and nose
  • Fatigue
  • Menstrual irregularities or early menopause

In the last decade, better supportive care has emerged to make nausea, vomiting, and low blood counts much more manageable.

Tamoxifen complications may include:

  • Increased risk of uterine cancer
  • Increased risk of blood clots
  • Hot flashes
  • Vaginal discharge or dryness
  • Menstrual irregularities

Radiation complications may include:

  • Skin reddening and blistering (a "sunburn" effect)
  • Thicker or darker skin
  • Crustiness on the nipple
  • Mild lung inflammation with dry cough and shortness of breath
  • Nausea
  • Fatigue
  • Costochondritis (arthritis pain near juncture of ribs and breastbone)
  • Rarely, radiation can cause second cancers in connective tissue
  • Poor wound healing

Quality of Life

During the course of your breast cancer treatment, the many decisions you and your doctor make will be critical to your health and recovery. Be careful to choose a doctor who respects your wishes and views you as a full partner in making decisions.

Cancer treatment is varied and complex. You will encounter benefits and risks at every stage of treatment. Your doctor should give you all the information you need to make sound decisions, but in the end, you are the only one who can decide, for instance, how much chemotherapy you can tolerate, whether you want breast reconstruction (and if so what kind), and whether you should use tamoxifen (one of the hormone-therapy drugs) after treatment.

Cancer affects not just your body, but your emotions, too. Few illnesses affect a woman's body image as much as breast cancer and the surgeries used to treat it. Mastectomies remove a breast, but even less-radical lumpectomies may alter the size or contour of your breast. Because the breast is so sexually charged in American culture, your feelings about your sexuality and sexual activity may weigh on your mind. No two women handle all of these challenges in the same way, but it will most likely be helpful to discuss your feelings with your partner, your doctor, a counselor, or a support group.

Considerations for Women

Pregnant women

As many as 4% of breast cancers occur during pregnancy or within the first year after giving birth. Pregnancy and breastfeeding can cause changes in the breast, such as lumpiness, blocked ducts and infections, all of which can make it more confusing to spot breast cancer.

Pregnancy also limits treatment choices. Surgery remains an option (although care must be taken with anesthesia), but radiation and chemotherapy must be delayed until after the pregnancy. Aborting the pregnancy is not therapeutic itself, but it makes treatment easier. Many doctors recommend that a woman wait five years after having breast cancer to become pregnant, as this is the period when recurrence is most common.

Nursing mothers

Nursing women cannot undergo chemotherapy because their infants may swallow the chemicals through breast milk. However, a nursing mother may wean her child onto formula, then take chemotherapy. Radiation may make later nursing impossible because the treatment often damages milk ducts.

Older women

The large majority-- 80%-- of all breast cancer cases occur in women over age 50, suggesting that older women need to be extra careful about breast self-exams, yearly checkups, and mammograms. Treatment and survival rates for early-stage breast cancer are the same for women of all ages.

Women with breast implants

Women who have breast implants have the same treatment options as women without implants. Some women worry that implants may make breast cancer surgery more difficult, but it doesn't. In fact, women can have a lumpectomy and radiation with the implant in place.

Breast cancer is a serious illness that requires the most sophisticated treatment the medical industry has to offer. However, many alternative treatments are under study and others may have a role in your well-being.

Vitamins, minerals, and other supplements

Most healthcare professionals agree that while certain supplements can be useful in treating cancer, you can best obtain your vitamins and minerals by eating a healthy diet. Look for foods high in vitamin C and vitamin E. Eat plenty of dark green vegetables, yellow and orange fruits, citrus fruits and bell peppers, wheat germ, seafood, legumes (especially soybeans), and poultry.

Herbal recommendations

Herbal products may be helpful, but being natural doesn't automatically make a product safe. Some herbal products have toxic effects that can interfere with medical treatments. Please be sure to discuss any herbal products with your doctor before you use them.

Some safe and effective herbs to consider during breast cancer treatment:

  • Green tea is a simple drink with potent healing potential. Research at the Medical College of Ohio has shown that one component of green tea inhibits an enzyme that allows cancerous tumors to grow and spread. Other research confirms green tea's various anticancer effects. For maximum protection, drink a cup or more daily. If caffeine is a concern, you might want to know that green tea contains only about one-third the caffeine in regular black tea.
  • Milk thistle has a long-standing reputation as a liver-strengthener. The liver filters everyday toxins from the bloodstream; during chemotherapy treatment your liver must handle an additional workload. Taken daily, milk thistle, or its extract called silymarin, can protect the liver from damage and maintain optimal function of this important organ.

Yoga and meditation

The regular practice of stress-reduction techniques can do much to relieve the anxiety related to cancer. Studies have shown that reducing stress helps strengthen the immune system.

Group support

Several studies have shown that women who participate in support groups may have an improved outcome relative to those who do not. Several theories attempt to explain this phenomenon. It may be that expressing feelings of loss and grief leads to an emotional catharsis that relieves tension and anxiety. Or it may be that those in support groups exchange information that gives participants a sense of control or confidence to insist on aggressive medical treatment and care. Support groups may also teach participants self-hypnosis and relaxation techniques that help patients cope with the pain and side effects of treatment.

Whatever the reason, many cancer specialists now recommend participation in a support group as a complement to conventional surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Some people may be uncomfortable with the idea of joining a support group: Those who do not wish to join an organized support group may also find comfort and support from friends and family, or from individual counseling with a therapist experienced in working with cancer patients.

Preventing Breast Cancer

There is no proven way to prevent breast cancer, but the risk may be reduced by eating a nutritious diet containing the necessary vitamins and minerals, and limiting alcohol use. Early detection is crucial to improve survival. Monthly breast self-exams and routine mammography are very effective screening methods. Ask your doctor how to perform self-exams and perform these faithfully. Among women who have had breast cancer, tamoxifen has been shown to reduce the reccurrence of breast cancer by 38%. In another study released last year, tamoxifen reduced the incidence of breast cancer by 49% in healthy women at high risk for the disease.

Breast examinations

Currently, mammograms, monthly breast self-exams, and regular breast exams by your doctor win the battle against breast cancer. Detecting breast cancer in its early stages is the best weapon against the disease.

Self-Care Measures

Have you or a family member had an experience with this? Help others by sharing your story now.

  7. Leave this field empty

Required Field