In modern times, one of the most notorious kinds of cancers to afflict our society is breast cancer. The awareness regarding this cancer has certainly grown drastically. Breast checks are absolutely critical as a breast cancer check up is the only way to detect the presence of cancerous tumors in a woman’s body. We will consider the significance of the breast cancer check up to our efforts towards ensuring that the awareness regarding breast cancer is as high as it possibly can be.
Of course, it is not the case that breast cancers did not occur in during previous eras at all. It is likely that this form of cancer was probably present in other eras as well. The reason it was not very visible is due to the fact that very few women lived long lives during these earlier eras. It is only in modern times, after dramatic improvements in health and sanitation, that people and women started living longer lives. Breast cancer, as is well known, attacks older women much more than it does younger women.
Now, only in the modern age when women began to live longer lives did they start to show signs of breast cancer. What has also changed in modern times is that we have some reasonably good ways of fighting breast cancer. Now, how successful a fight against breast cancer will turn out to be depends to a large extent on how early the condition is diagnosed in the patient. In the event, the cancers are diagnosed early – treatments are available today to fight this cancer and to cure persons suffering from this cancer.
The Nature of Breast Cancer
This cancer starts to show as a cancer of the tissue in the breasts and surrounding tissue. Most commonly, this cancer is diagnosed when a patient experiences a lump inside her breast. This is the initial sign. Immediately thereafter, a series of tests are done in order to determine whether this is indeed a case of breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer amongst women. It is also the form that kills the largest number of women. Another very important feature that we would need to note concerning breast cancer is that it tends to strike older women more often than it does younger women.
Surprisingly, the incidence of breast cancer is not evenly distributed across the world. It clearly appears to be more prevalent in societies such as the US and Western Europe and least prevalent in Asian societies. This has also given people reason to think that these forms of cancer could also be related to the specific lifestyles and diets adopted by these societies.
What to Expect in a Breast Cancer Check Up?
The reason that it is absolutely vital that you should organize regular breast cancer check up for all women in the family is because an early diagnosis of potentially cancerous tumors is extremely important. When you go for a breast examination – the health worker will assist with trying to see if there are any lumps that could be potentially cancerous in the breast and surrounding tissue. In the event that such a lump or lumps are found, further tests will now be done. These include mammography, biopsy and other tests that may be required. In the event any of the tissues are found to be cancerous – the next step would be to identify the stage at which the cancer is currently at. These stages range from the earliest to the most advanced.
When a diagnosis of breast cancer has been made, a number of different kinds of treatments are commenced by the doctors and hospitals. In previous decades surgery to cut off the cancerous tissues was a cure that was used quite extensively. However, in more recent times, the treatments for such breast cancers too have become quite sophisticated. Today, combinations of different kinds of treatment are typically deployed to manage and fight the cancer. These could include chemotherapy, monoclonal antibodies and hormone blocking agents.
Older treatment methods were crude, harmful and frequently ineffective. Mastectomy – or the cutting off of the breast in its entirety used to be one of the methods used. These methods had some very serious consequences. They ostensibly removed the cancerous tissue. But often, the cancer had by this time spread to other parts of the body – and the cancer ended up recurring in the same patient. The recurrence of the cancer has been frequently fatal. Those that had successfully survived the mastectomy surgery ended up with completely disfigured bodies for the rest of their lives. In stark contrast to these earlier treatment methods, most modern treatments for breast cancer are not as crude or invasive.
What’s more, the success rates for survival have increased dramatically for several of the modern treatment methods. Thus, an early diagnosis these days will set in motion a series of processes for determining the best combination of treatments with the highest probabilities of success. Once doctors have thus determined the course of the medical treatment, hospitals and professional health care workers take over to ensure that the most optimal result is achieved. The most optimal results in these circumstances would probably be the survival of the patient. And not just survival, but survival and the ability to experience life again to the fullest degree possible.
The importance of the breast cancer check up cannot be emphasized enough. Women in the modern era are very vulnerable to it. It is very important to ensure that we encourage our women folk to do the breast cancer check up so that any potential danger is identified and treated as soon as possible. The recommended medical treatments would be the main component of the fight against cancer. These would have to be supplemented – in most cases – by changes one may have to make to our diets and lifestyles. There is evidence to suggest that lifestyles and diets can be risk factors for certain types of breast cancer. We will likely have to make changes to our lifestyles as well.
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