Essay on breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common women disease in the world. In Canada it is most frequent illness among the female population, resulting more than 22,000 new diagnoses every year. Beyond 5,000 Canadian women die yearly, more than from any other cancer except for the lung. Worldwide it reports for 22% of all new tumors in women and 10% of all new cancer cases in men. Breast cancer is a crucial concern in the public health of Canada and not only in Canada, but around the world among the female population, no matter which actual measurements are being used. It is prevailing and represents a high percentage of premature mortality among women population. One in nine women will be diagnosed with and 1 in 27 will die of breast cancer in their lifetime. Fortunately, with efficient treatments of expended screening programs and yearly mammography, which depicts the breast cancer in it’s early stage; the survival rate increased dramatically for the past years and many women live for a long time succeeding the diagnosis of the breast cancer. This means that a significant amount of females are living with a breast cancer today and about 1 in every 100 women had a breast cancer in her life in the past 15 years. Very rarely breast cancer can also develop in men, but the statistical factors aren’t significant, it only proclaims less than 1% of overall breast cancer cases.

Diagnosis of developing a breast cancer:
For both male and female population risk factors for the breast cancer are similar: age, obesity, family history (genetics) of breast cancer and radiation. Unfortunately, female breast cancer percentage rates in Canada are among the highest in the world. The similar rates are in Europe, USA and Australia, while the regions of Africa, Asia and South America reveal lower rates. Among the Canadian population First Nation and Inuit women have the lowest percentage rates. These variations could be partly explained in different level of physical activity, usage of hormones, obesity indicators and screening intensity. As any other type of caner it increments significantly with age. “In every adult group breast cancer account for over 30% of newly diagnoses in women aged 20-49; 50-69 and over 20% among older women.”(Cancer Care Ontario). Favorably the time trends for the mortality rates in Canada has fallen extremely since late 1980s and mid-1990s. Mortality has been successfully declining in the long term among the age groups 20-39,40-49 and 50-59.For older women generation the mortality rate was stable until recent. This recent time trends notable declines are generally associated with two factors: first, improvement in screening and improved quality of mammography, secondly due to the therapy advances.

Traditional treatment of breast cancer:

These declines are generally attributed to two factors: first, improvements in screening, where development of organized screening programs, increased participation in screening (by women aged 50-69 in particular) and improved quality of mammography since the late 1980s have led to detection of more breast cancers at an earlier stage where treatment is more effective; and second, advances in therapy.
Although separating the impact of screening from that of treatment is challenging, Berry et al. concluded that mammographic screening and adjuvant systemic therapy have contributed about equally to improved breast cancer outcomes in the US.6 Figure 13.5 illustrates the increasing use of chemotherapy and tamoxifen, particularly together sequentially, over the period during which the mortality rate has dropped. More recently, targeted therapy has resulted in improved outcomes in patients whose cancers overexpress the her-2 oncogene. There is evidence that postmastectomy chest wall radiation has also contributed to improved survival in certain patient groups.7,8
72 Canadian Cancer Society/National Cancer Institute of Canada:
Screening
The introduction and now widespread availability of

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Breast Cancer