Breast Cancer - Treatment and Symptoms

Breast Cancer is one of the most common type of cancer.With every 4 minutes an Indian women is Diagnose with breast cancer. Approximately 14 %of Indian women are suffering from breast cancer. Early detection is the key for successful treatment. For early detection, awareness is very important. Self Examination Every women should perform self examination on regular basis. How to do self examination : 1. Stand in front of mirror  with both hands on the hips. Now carefully observe  if there is any change in the size, shape and colour of your breast. 2. See for any discharge coming out of the nipple , watery , milky , pus or blood mixed discharge. 3. If there  is any dimple or nipple gone towards inside. 4. Raise your both hands and examine the same changes as mentioned above. 5 Lie down on bed and place your first three fingers on breast and rotate it in circular motion, feel if there is any hard mass palpable or lump. A Lump If you find any kind of lump in breast , don't get panic because may be it's not a  cancerous lump. Visit to your doctor and get the breast examination done. Mammogram Breast xray that is most commonly used to dete breast cancer. Ultrasound It's a kind of test in which we send sound waves to deep tissues to create an image of inside the body. It's helpful to detect of the lump is a solid mass or filled with fluid. Biopsy Most confirmatory test to detect  cancer . A special needle device is used to reach upto the lump and a piece of tissue is collected from inside the lump and sent to laboratory to detect the type of cell inside the tissue of its cancerous cell or normal cell. With the help of biopsy we can detect the nature of cancerous cell also and like this we can confirm the stage of cancer from biopsy report. Mri MRI means magnetic resonance imaging. Magnetic and radio waves are used to perform thus test so that a clear picture of breast is obtained . In order to perform this test a dye is injected  intravenously . Mri is considered to be safe test because it doesn't uses radiation for image formation. Breast Cancer Surgeries Lumpectomy It's also called breast conservative surgery in which the surgery don't remove the while breast. Only lump and a small margin of surrounding healthy tissue around the lump is removed. If the tumour is small then it is removed but if he size of the tumor is large then chemotherapy is given first , to shrink the size of tumour and there after lumpectomy is done. Mastectomy A type of surgery in which whole breast is removed including all breast tissues, libule, skin,duct, nipple and Areola. New surgical techniques have been developed in which skin and nipple are not removed surgically, it's called nipple sparing mastectomy. Other surgeries In some surgeries limited number of lymph nodes are removed and some time lymph nodes in armpit area is also removed when the cancer has spread to armpit area. - sometimes patient wants to get both breasts to be removed when there are chances of cancer spread are more or patient is having strong family history of cancer. You should have an open discussion with your doctor regarding cancer treatment options and about risk and benefits of that particular treatment. Radiotherapy High powered beams are given to the affected area in this treatment . These rays are called xrays and protons. These rays kill cancer cells and in some cases radioactive material is placed inside the body. This procedure is called brachytherapy. Radiation to whole breast is commonly given after lumpectomy so as to avoid the spread of cancer. After mastectomy Radiations are given to whole chest wall. Radiation period usually last for 3 days to 6 weeks. The amount and period of Radiation is decided by your radiaion oncologist. Side effects of radiation include sunburn like rashes and fatigue. Chemotherapy These are the drugs to destroy fast growing cancer cells. Your oncologist will decode wheather to give chemotherapy before ot after surgery. Target therapy This therapy is used for certain types of cancer cells which have specific abnormality. Cancer cells  produce a protient called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 and here protiens help in the growth of these cells. Target therapy is ised in such patients having these types of cancer cells producing Her2 protein. It specifically kills these cells. Immunotherapy Our immune system fights against cancer.But these cancer cells are very clever, they produce a kind of protien to inhibit the function of these immune cells. Immunotherapy is given that act against these protiens to make immune cells active against cancer. Screening test Early detection is the key for successful treatment. Screening tests are done to detect cancer at early stage so that you don't have to go through aggressive treatment. Women - 44 to 55 years of age can get mammogram test done every years. 55 years onwards- get mammogram test done every alternate year.