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Breast Cancer

 

            There are not many people who do not know of someone that has suffered a breast cancer scare or diagnosis. According to definition, breast cancer is the development of abnormal cells within the breast tissue. These cells continue to grow and divide uncontrollably, accumulating and forming tumors or lumps that may compress, invade, and destroy normal tissue. As the quote above states, it's a very serious fight for life that requires a lot of strength and determination. This year, according to the American Cancer Society, some 200,000 women (and 1,500 men) will learn they have breast cancer, which is up from a little more than 100,000 two decades ago (Gorman 50)". Trailing lung cancer, it has become the number-two killer of cancer patients in the world. .
             An important aspect of beating breast cancer is being aware of the risk factors which intern can help catch the disease in its early stages. Staging is a method of grouping patients by the extent of disease to determine the choice of treatment, predict prognosis, and compare the results of different treatment approaches. The more advanced the disease, the poorer the prognosis. The disease occurs mostly in women, but it does occur, although rarely, in men also. Women at a higher risk for developing breast cancer are those with a strong family history of breast cancer, a personal history of the disease, early menarche or late menopause, or a first full-pregnancy after age 30. The risk of developing breast cancer also increases with increasing age. Long-term estrogen therapy, a high fat diet, and alcohol use have been reported as possible risk factors, but the extent of how they relate to the onset of breast cancer remains unclear. Although there is no evidence of any given racial group to be at a higher or lower risk of developing breast cancer, with the possible exception that the incidence of the disease seems to be slightly lower in black women, there seems to be some evidence that breast cancer incidence is much higher in the "industrialized nations" (Lopez).


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