Breast cancer usually shows as a lump or thickening in the breast tissue, although most breast lumps are not cancerous. Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent malignant disease among women. According to American reports every third cancer is diagnosed as BC. Breast cancer is also far more common in post-menopausal women, and the risk continues to increase with rising age.
Breast cancer is an area of tissue that has an abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells (tumor). It can either be malignant (cancerous) or benign ( not cancerous). Breast cancer may be diagnosed before any symptoms occur through screening. The NHS National Breast Screening Programmed provides free screening for breast cancer for all women over the age of 50. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, and mammograms as images are extremely complex with many degrees of variability across the population. Breast-cancer screening procedures suffer from several complications with a relatively high error rate.
Screening in the United States is usually initiated in response to a physician's recommendation (known as "opportunistic screening"), and women are advised to have annual screening mammograms. By contrast, breast cancer screening programs in Norway and in some other European countries regularly send letters to all women in a specific age range inviting them to have a screening mammogram. Breast cancer screening is an important part of preventive care. A mammogram helps detect early breast cancer. Breast cancer screening means checking a woman's breasts for cancer before there are signs or symptoms of the disease.
Mammograms can miss some cancers. But despite their limitations, they remain a very effective and valuable tool for decreasing suffering and death from breast cancer. Mammogram is the most widely used screening test for cancer of the breast. Breast lumps found on mammography are benign 90% of the time.
Mammograms, self-exams and clinical breast exams do not always detect breast cancer causing false negative In day-to-day practice, mammograms can miss more than a quarter of all tumors.
Women may receive chemotherapy before or after breast surgery. The doctor can also use chemotherapy to treat cancer that has come back. Women who have an altered gene related to breast cancer and who have had breast cancer in one breast have an increased risk of developing breast cancer in the other breast.
These women also have an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer, and may have an increased risk of developing other cancers. Women also completed a 15-item questionnaire to evaluate their levels of anxiety, depression and happiness and optimism.
Increasing age is the biggest single risk factor for breast cancer. For those women who do have a family history of breast cancer, your risk may be elevated a little, a lot, or not at all. Increasingly chemotherapy (drug treatment) and hormone therapy may be given before operations and/or radiotherapy. Both have generally been shown to have a positive effect on survival.
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