Definition
Cancer that forms in tissues of the breast, usually the ducts (tubes that carry milk to the nipple) and lobules (glands that make milk). It occurs in both men and women, although male breast cancer is rare.
According to Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, Black women with breast cancer have a 31% mortality rate, which is higher than any other ethnic group.
Breast cancer incidences are higher in Black women ages 45 and under than white women.
Causes
Many risk factors may increase your chance of developing breast cancer, but it is not yet known exactly how some of these risk factors cause cells to become cancerous. Hormones seem to play a role in many cases of breast cancer, but just how this happens is not fully understood.
Certain changes in DNA can cause normal breast cells to become cancerous. DNA is the chemical in each of our cells that makes up our genes — the instructions for how our cells function. We usually look like our parents because they are the source of our DNA. But DNA affects more than how we look.
Symptoms
Early breast cancer usually doesn’t cause symptoms. But as the tumor grows, it can change how the breast looks or feels. The common changes include:
• A lump or thickening in or near the breast or in the underarm area
• A change in the size or shape of the breast
• Dimpling or puckering in the skin of the breast
• A nipple turned inward into the breast
• Discharge (fluid) from the nipple, especially if it’s bloody
• Scaly, red, or swollen skin on the breast, nipple, or areola (the dark area of skin at the center of the breast). The skin may have ridges or pitting so that it looks like the skin of an orange.
Exams and Tests
Your doctor can check for breast cancer before you have any symptoms. During an office visit, your doctor will ask about your personal and family medical history. You’ll have a physical exam. Your doctor may order one or more imaging tests, such as a mammogram.
Doctors recommend that women have regular clinical breast exams and mammograms to find breast cancer early. Treatment is more likely to work well when breast cancer is detected early.
Tests include:
• Clinical Breast Exam
• Mammogram
• Imaging Tests
• Biopsy
• Lab Tests With Breast Tissue
Treatments
There are many treatment options. The treatment that’s best for one may not be best for another.
The options are surgery, radiation therapy, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy. You may receive more than one type of treatment.
Surgery and radiation therapy are types of local therapy. They remove or destroy cancer in the breast. Hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy are types of systemic therapy. The drug enters the bloodstream and destroys or controls cancer throughout the body.
The treatment that’s right for you depends mainly on the stage of the cancer, the results of the hormone receptor tests, the result of the