Breast Cancer

Hi,

I am Dr. Dale D Rodrigues, Oncology. Today I will speak to you on breast cancer. One in 8 women is diagnosed with breast cancer in their entire lifetime. About 60% of diagnosed cases in India are at the advanced stage. So, the point is to detect breast cancer at an early stage. So, what is breast cancer? Breast cancer is the cancer of the breast ducts or breast lobule which is milk ducts of the breast. So, what are the risk factors for patients who get breast cancer? Risk factors are early or late menopause, not having children, not feeding your babies, having a family history of breast cancer. So, it is hormone-dependent cancer. What is the age group that we are looking at? The age group is around 50-60 years. But now breast cancer is coming at the age of 30-35 years also. So, it is coming to the younger age group as well. The detection rate has been increased. What are the symptoms? The symptoms of breast cancer most commonly a breast lump.

A lump in the breast should not be taken lightly. You should get this checked with a Dr. Another symptom is discharged from the blood nipple. If the cancer is growing in the breast duct, that cancer will bleed into the duct and that blood will come out through the nipple. The next symptom is either dimpling of the skin or pulling inward of the nipple. Next is redness or rash over the breast is probably a symptom of advanced cancer. Last is fungus or ulceration of cancer from the breast which is nothing but an open wound because the cancer is broken out through the breast. How do we detect breast cancer? It can be done by simple breast self-examination. Basically 3 things are there. Look at yourself in the mirror. You need to see the family history of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and colorectal cancer. These cancers are linked to each other. So, you should get yourself screened.

You should be screened if you are above the age of 50 in India. In the US, criteria are for 40 years. What do we do next if you are detected with breast cancer? The first thing is mammography along with the sonomammography. 2nd thing is a biopsy. In this small tissue is taken out from the breast. It is sent to the pathologist to check under the microscope for any cancerous cell. After this, we decide what treatment has to be done. The treatment is basically surgery which can be either chemotherapy, radiation or hormonal therapy or the new advanced target therapy. So, what do we do I surgery? In this either complete removal of the breast or a part of the breast. Which one to do that depends on the site of the tumor. If we do a complete removal of the breast, most lightly you do not need radiation. If we save the breast, then you require radiation. Chemotherapy will depend on the final report which comes after 15-20 days. Another way is to give the chemotherapy first but that will depend upon the tumor size. Last I would like to tell you about survival. We need to detect you in an early stage and not in the advanced stage. In this we want you to learn self-examination. Stages are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Survival rate in stage 0, 1, 2 is 90-95%.

But as you reach at the stage of 3 & 4, it gets dropped by 70%. So, the point is to learn self-examination. Have a good outcome on this. You can contact with me through lybrate.com. You can call me or message me through Lybrate.

Thank You!