Breast Cancer

            
             If a woman were to be diagnosed with breast cancer 15 years ago, it was most likely that she wouldn't survive. There wasn't much knowledge of the subject then leaving doctors clueless in how to treat the matter. With all of the technology of today, the medical world has made so much progress in treating breast cancer and looking for a cure. Breast cancer is a potentially fatal disease that affects many lives. It can impact the lives of not only the women who have contracted the disease, but also their friends and families. There are many technological advancements made everyday in the fight to find a cure, however, by educating women on the subject, utilizing tools for early detection, and improving treatments, the survival rate has increased and many cases have even been prevented from happening. .
             "Cancer is not just one disease but rather a group of diseases. All forms of cancer causes cells in the body to change and grow out of control. Most types of cancer cells form a lump or mass called a tumor. Cells from the tumor can break away and travel to other parts of the body where they can continue to grow," (American Cancer Society, 1). When a woman gets breast cancer, it is a malignant tumor that has developed in the breast tissue. The cancer cells have the ability to spread to the underarm lymph nodes from which they are more likely to spread to other organs in the body. Benign tumors (non-cancerous), however, do not have the ability to spread and are not life threatening. There are many types of malignant tumors, which are determined by the severity of the cancer and how far it has spread. "The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2001 about 182,800 new cases of invasive breast cancer (Stages I-IV) will be diagnosed among women in the United States and about 41,200 deaths from the disease," (Reach to Recovery, 5).
             There are many different risk factors believed to be involved in increasing a woman's chance of getting breast cancer.