Quote: Health Care
Nothing in life is to be feared.
It is only to be understood….. Marie Curie
Well, knowing how your body works
will stand you in good stead. Being aware of what can occur, being awake to the
danger signs and having a baseline knowledge of what is and is not normal for
you, means you are substantially reducing the risks, not of illness or
infection occurring but of allowing it to develop to a stage when it may,
indeed be ominous. This is your first line of defense and your most important one.
It means taking the responsibility for your own good health, looking upon it
and having the common sense to consult your doctor, should you find or feel your
might have found anything potentially abnormal.
Breast
These days, how women feel about
their breasts largely determines how they feel about themselves as women. Because
of this, breast cancer and with it the thought of losing a breast, generates
more fear among women than almost any other single disease. This fear keeps the
average woman at home for 5 to 6 months before she consults her doctor about a
lump she has found in her breast.
Not every lump, however, has to
be a cancer. In fact very few are. Even so, breast cancer is the most common
form of cancer among women and afflicts one in every 12 women at some time in
their lives. For this reason, it is very essential to be a especially vigilant
and vigilance begins at home.
Although there is a tendency to
talk of breast cancer as a single disease, there are many different types. Some
are very slow growing and may not spread much more rapidly. The doubling time
for breast tumors it takes one abnormal cell to become two and two to become
four can be as little as two months or as much as nine years. Whatever the type
of cancer the chances of successful treatment increase dramatically with early
detection.
Therefore, early detection
depends first and foremost on regular, monthly self examinations. The more practiced
you get at examining and feeling your breasts and the better acquainted you are
with the natural differences and
irregularities between them, the greater your chance of spotting a significant
change at the earliest possible opportunity. Early detection depends, on
medical screening the breasts, clinical examination and mammography. With
advances in technology it is possible that a third ultrasound may provide a
major breakthrough.
While it is undesirable that any screening
method should carry a risk however slight of aggravating the condition it is
supposed to be protecting against, mammography is undoubtedly the earliest way
of reliably detecting a breast lump before it has become large enough to be felt,
by either doctor or patient. A breast lump usually only becomes palpable at
about 2cm in size. The mammogram can detect a lump at ½ cm sometimes less, and
will pick up between a quarter and a third of all breast cancers before they
become large enough to be felt.
As long as minimal dose radiation
issued, the risks carried by the screening process are virtually negligible
when set against the considerable advantages of early detection. The
comparative risk to benefit ratio of mammography are illuminating. Clinical
records and various established factors enabled scientists to compute that if
one million women were to be screened annually for 10 years, radiation induced
breast cancers would be induced in seven in the meantime, more than 300,000
early cancer would have been detected.
Breast Cancer The Risk Factors
Although isolating specific risk
factors is difficult with any disease, the following are now regarded as being
the major ones for breast cancer and the ones at the top of the list are considered
to carry the highest risk. They do not suggest that you are likely to get
breast cancer, accounting as they do for at least half the female population.
But they do suggest that you should be especially vigilant.
·
If you have already had cancer in one breast or
have any other type of hormone dependent cancer, such as cancer of the cervix,
uterus or ovaries.
·
If you have a close relative who has had breast
cancer particularly if the cancer occurred at an early age 35 or younger and was
bilateral in both breasts.
·
If you have never been pregnant or particularly
if you had your first full term pregnancy over the age of 35. While childbearing
in your teens and early to mid 20’s seems to have a definite protective effect,
breastfeeding does not appear to have a significant one.
·
If you are over 35, then breast cancer is
extremely rare in women below this age group, when a lump in the breast is most
likely to be a benign tumor or cyst.
·
If your periods started early at 12 or younger
and finished late at 50 or over.
·
If you have had benign breast disease. Some
breast lumps, though benign occasionally show signs of abnormal, pre cancerous
growth.
·
If you have undergone prolonged hormone
replacement therapy, after hysterectomy or over the menopause, you may be at a
slightly increased risk. The progesterone component of bothe the combined hormone
replacement therapy and the combined contraceptive pill seems to confer a
protective effect against benign breast diseases.
Healthy people who carry no
special risk, such as a family history of heart disease, do not necessarily
need an annual checkup. A more realistic schedule would be would be every two
years from the age of 35 to the age of 50 once every year after that. Every
month just after your period has finished; on the first day of each calendar
month if you have been through the menopause. Mammography once at the age of
35, a single view can be done annually thereafter. If you fall into one of the
higher risk categories your doctor may suggest that you have mammograms taken
earlier and or more frequently. If a female relative has had breast cancer, you
should start mammography screening at the age earlier than that at which the
relative cancer was detected.
Moreover, cervical smear soon
after the time of first intercourse and against one year later, thereafter at
three yearly intervals up to age 35 and at five yearly intervals up to age 60.
If all results have been negative testing can be discontinued. You should have
annual smear test if you have had the herpes virus.
