Breast cancer can take many forms

Berthoud Weekly Surveyor September 30, 2021 Page 5 Breast cancer can take many forms from benign to malignant

In early 2019, I was diagnosed with a radial scar that was pre-pre-breast cancer at high risk for turning into breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy and now have a small exterior scar and a few poems I wrote about the scary, grown anywhere else in the breast tissue, while invasive, or infiltrating, breast cancer has spread into the surrounding breast tissue. Once the cancer moves into emotional experience.

Invasive breast cancer, a type of cancer that starts in the breast when cells begin to grow out of control, will affect about one in eight U.S. women sometime in their lifetime, according to breastcancer.org, a nonprofit information source. As of yet, ’m not part of that statistic, since my cancer was in the pre-pre category, but luckily to annual mammograms, it was caught early.

The American ancer Society estimates that in 2021, more than 281,500 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed and that about , women will die from the disease. Another , new cases of ductal carcinoma in situ, or S, also will be diagnosed.

Breast cancer comes in many forms with the type determined by the specific cells in the breast that are affected.

“Most breast cancers are carcinomas, which are tumors that start in the epithelial cells that line organs and tissues throughout the body, as stated by the American ancer Society. arcinomas that form in the breast are adenocarcinomas that typically start in the cells in the milk ducts, which carry milk to the nipple, or in the lobules, the glands that produce breast milk. A breast is made up of three main parts, milk ducts, lobules and connective tissue, the fibrous and fatty tissue that holds everything together.

Two types of breast cancer include those that have spread and those remaining localized. S is a pre-invasive breast cancer that starts in a milk duct and has not other parts of the body through the blood vessels and lymph vessels, it’s said to have metastasized, according to the enters for isease ontrol. The most common types of invasive breast cancers include invasive ductal carcinoma, which amounts to 70-80% of all breast cancers, and invasive lobular carcinoma that is less frequent. Invasive ductal carcinoma spreads from the ducts to other parts of the breast tissue. Invasive lobular carcinoma spreads from the lobules to nearby breast tissue. Within the invasive category, there are a few less common special types that have different features or develop in different ways. Triple-negative breast cancer is an aggressive type of cancer that makes up about of all breast cancers, and inflammatory breast cancer is less common at 1-5% of all breast cancers. There are additional types of breast cancers that affect other cells in the breast and require different forms of treatment. Their names include Paget’s disease of the breast affecting the breast ducts, nipple and areola; the phyllodes tumor in the connective tissue of the breast that can be benign or malignant; and angiosarcoma in the cells that line blood vessels or lymph vessels that can involve breast tissue and the skin of the breast. Angiosarcoma is the rarest form, making up less than 1% of all breast cancers. A small number of cancers start in other breast tissues and are called sarcomas and lymphomas they aren’t considered to be breast cancer. Breast cancer cells usually form a tumor, which can be detected through an -ray or physical examination that identifies a lump. ost lumps are benign abnormal growths that don’t spread outside of the breast and are not life-threatening. Oftentimes, the lumps are fluid-filled cysts, and they can increase breast cancer risk. I started getting mammograms every year at about age 30 when a cyst was found that later became pre-pre-cancerous. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommends mammograms every two years for women ages 50 to 75, so I started early and get screened more frequently as a preventative tool for being at risk for breast cancer. f you find a lump or other change in your breast even if a recent mammogram was normal — make an appointment with your doctor for prompt evaluation, as stated by the ayo linic. My prompt evaluation makes me ever grateful and thankful for my local medical community, since I was heading toward pre-cancer, scary in itself without even being the big of ancer. ( nformation for this report came from the American ancer Society, the enters for isease ontrol and the ayo linic.

Surveyor Columnist Shelley Widhalm

Did you know?

A study published in the journal ancer pidemiology, iomarkers and Prevention” found that about one-third of women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in the United States live at least five years after diagnosis. Also known as stage breast cancer, metastatic breast cancer is the most advanced stage of the disease. Metastatic breast cancer refers to breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other parts of the body.

Patients diagnosed with breast cancer also should know that improved treatments may further their chances of surviving a diagnosis, even a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. n fact, the American ancer Society notes that survival rates are based on women who were diagnosed and treated at least five years earlier. n the time since those survival rates were documented, treatments could have advanced even further, potentially improving the five-year survival rates for metastatic breast cancer.