Breast Cancer

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Breast Cancer

• By Andrew Takai, Amanda Arias, Nadja George,
  Sibyl Wong, Jessica Pang, Nicole Afflerback

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Breast Cancer

• Prevention
• Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Celebrities battling breast cancer

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Prevention

• Knowledge
• Get examined
• Stop Smoking
• Exercise on a regular basis to relieve stress
• Preventive medicine
• Can reduce the extent to which estrogen
  stimulates the growth of breast cells

• Prevent prolonged exposure to estrogen
• Drinking alcohol (limits the livers ability to
  regulate blood estrogen levels)
• Being overweight (increases production of
  estrogen)

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Prevention

• Breast cancer genes can be inherited from family.
• Get a yearly breast examination by a physician.
• Do a monthly breast self-examination at home.
• Get a mammogram every year beginning at age 40.
• Monitor your diet.
• Restrict red meat and other sources of animal fat
  (this includes dairy fat in cheese, milk, and ice
  cream), because they may contain stored hormones
  or pesticides.
• Try to stick to a relatively vegetarian diet
• Learn about breast cancer and your level of risk
  to it, how to prevent it, and how it starts.
• Catching the cancer early is when it is most
  curable, is the goal.

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Diagnosis of Breast Cancer

• Breast cancer- the uncontrollable growth of the
  breast cell
• All women are at risk
• Estimated 280,000 cases in 2004
• The earlier tested, the better

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Diagnosis continued

• BSE- Breast Self Examination
• Screening and Testing
• Screening Test
• Diagnostic Test

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Treatments

• Overview of Options
• For every stage of breast cancer, you and your
  treatment team can consider three broad types of
  treatment
• Local/regional treatment
• Systemic treatments
• Alternative and Holistic Therapies

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• Local/regional treatment is directed to the
  breast and to lymph nodes around the breast.
  ("Regional" here refers to the lymph nodes in the
  region of the body surrounding the breastthese
  are also called "adjacent" lymph nodes.) In the
  case of metastatic disease, local treatment may
  be given to specific areas of metastasis (places
  where cancer may have spread, such as bones or
  lungs).
• Systemic treatments are directed to the whole
  body or "system.
• Alternative and Holistic Therapies are directed
  to the whole person, including mind and spirit as
  well as body.

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Surgery

• You may hear many different terms used to
  describe the kinds of surgery that can be done,
  but there are really two main options
• breast-conserving surgery, (commonly known as
  lumpectomy) in which only the tumor is removed
  from the breast. This is usually followed by
  radiation therapy to the remaining breast
  tissue.
• mastectomy, an operation in which the whole
  breast is removed. Sometimes radiation is given
  after mastectomy.

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Lymph Node Removal

• If you have invasive breast cancer, your surgeon
  will probably remove some of the lymph nodes
  under your arm during your lumpectomy or
  mastectomy. Examining your lymph nodes helps your
  doctors figure out the extent of cancer
  involvement. Cancer in the lymph nodes is
  associated with an increased risk of having
  cancer cells in other parts of your body.

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Radiation Therapy

• Radiation therapyalso called radiotherapyis a
  highly targeted, highly effective way to destroy
  cancer cells that may linger after surgery. This
  reduces the risk of recurrence. Despite what many
  women fear, radiation therapy is relatively easy
  to tolerate, and the side effects are restricted
  to the area being treated.

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Herceptin

• Herceptin (chemical name trastuzumab) is the
  only immune treatment currently available for
  breast cancer. It is considered an immune
  treatment because it helps the immune system
  fight the cancer. It does this by giving the body
  an antibody that can help slow down or stop the
  growth of cancer cells.

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Hormonal Therapy

• Hormonal therapy is a form of systemic treatment
  for breast cancer. The goal is to protect your
  whole body from breast cancer cells that may have
  escaped the original tumor. In hormonal therapy,
  drugs are used to block the effects of hormones
  (such as estrogen and progesterone) that have the
  potential to promote the growth of breast cancer.
• Tamoxifen is the best-known anti-estrogen therapy
  for fighting and preventing breast cancer.

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Tamoxifen

• Tamoxifen is a powerful drug. It reduces the risk
  of breast cancer recurrence it decreases the
  chance of a new breast cancer starting it helps
  keep bones strong and it helps keep cholesterol
  down. Every woman needs to weigh these benefits
  against the drug's side effects, and make an
  individual decision about taking tamoxifen.

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Chemotherapy

• Chemotherapy is a systemic therapy this means it
  affects the whole body by going through the
  bloodstream. The purpose of chemotherapy and
  other systemic treatments is to get rid of any
  cancer cells that may have spread from where the
  cancer started to another part of the body.
• Chemotherapy is effective against cancer cells
  because the drugs love to interfere with rapidly
  dividing cells. The side effects of chemotherapy
  come about because cancer cells aren't the only
  rapidly dividing cells in your body. The cells in
  your blood, mouth, intestinal tract, nose, nails,
  vagina, and hair are also undergoing constant,
  rapid division. This means that the chemotherapy
  is going to affect them, too.

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Alternative Therapies

• Alternative therapies, also called complementary
  and holistic therapies, view the person as a
  force unto herself, a holistic unity, where mind
  and spirit are as intimately involved in healing
  as the body. This approach is more often rooted
  in traditional or Eastern philosophies.
• Complementary therapies are usually directed at
  helping the body to heal itself, by unblocking
  blocked energies or correcting various
  "imbalances" in the person's essential processes.

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Celebrities battling breast cancer

• Important to get a check up
• Men can get breast cancer too
• Although before there were limited options,
  technology and advancement in this day and age
  offer a lot of options for women and men that
  need to go through a mastectomy with immediate
  reconstructive surgery.