Breast Cancer Fully Explained
If you were to look up “breast” in the dictionary, you would find that it relates to the chest area. The reason for such a broad definition is that both men and women have a chest, and therefore breasts, and both men and women can develop breast cancer.
However, the difference between male and female breast cancers and why women are more at risk of developing breast cancer is due to their makeup. Women’s breasts are a glans designed to produce milk. The lobules of the breast produce milk, which then drains through the ducts to the nipple.
Like all parts of your body, your breast cells generally grow and then rest in cycles. The growth and rest periods in each cell are controlled by genes in the cell’s nucleus. The nucleus is like the control room of each cell. When your genes are working right, they keep cell growth in check. But when their genes develop an abnormality, they sometimes lose the ability to control the cycle of cell growth and rest. Breast cancer, then, is an uncontrolled growth of breast cells.
If that weren’t enough, cancer has the potential to break through the normal barriers of breast tissue and spread to other parts of the body. While cancer is always caused by a genetic “abnormality” (an “error” in the genetic material), only 5-10% of cancers are inherited from the mother or father. Instead, 90% of breast cancers are due to genetic abnormalities that occur as a result of the aging process and I would venture to say “life in general” or the “abuse of life in general.”
While there are things every woman can do to help her body stay as healthy as possible—eating a balanced diet, not smoking, minimizing stress, and exercising regularly—breast cancer is never anyone’s fault. Feeling guilty or telling yourself that breast cancer happened because of something you or someone else did is counterproductive.
There are different stages of breast cancer and can be briefly classified as follows:
Stage 0: This stage is used to describe non-invasive breast cancer. There is no evidence that cancer cells have broken away from the part of the breast where they started, or that they have broken through or invaded nearby normal tissue.
Stage I: This stage describes invasive breast cancer (cancer cells break through or invade neighboring normal tissue) in which the tumor is up to 2 centimeters and no lymph nodes are involved.
Stage II: This stage describes invasive breast cancer in which the tumor is at least 2 centimeters, but not larger than 5 centimeters, OR the cancer has spread to lymph nodes under the arm on the same side as the breast cancer. The affected lymph nodes have not yet adhered to each other or to surrounding tissues, a sign that the cancer has not yet progressed to stage III. (The lump in the breast can be any size.)
Stage III – Stage III is divided into subcategories known as IIIA and IIIB.
Stage IIIA: Describes invasive breast cancer in which the tumor is larger than 5 centimeters, OR there is significant lymph node involvement. Nodes clump together or adhere to each other or to surrounding tissue.
Stage IIIB: This stage describes invasive breast cancer in which a tumor of any size has spread to the skin of the breast, chest wall, or internal mammary lymph nodes (located under the breast, just below the ribs, in the middle of the chest). Stage IIIB includes inflammatory breast cancer, a very rare but very serious and aggressive type of breast cancer. The most distinctive feature of inflammatory breast cancer is redness involving part or all of the breast. The redness feels warm. You may see swelling on the skin of the breast that looks like the peel of a navel orange (“peau d’orange”), or even ridges, welts, or hives. And part or all of the breast may be enlarged and hard. A lump is present only half the time. Inflammatory breast cancer is sometimes misdiagnosed as a simple infection.
Stage IV: This stage includes invasive breast cancer in which a tumor has spread beyond the breast, armpit, and internal mammary lymph nodes, AND a tumor may have spread to the supraclavicular lymph nodes (nodes located in the base of the neck, above the clavicle), the lungs, the liver, the bones, or the brain. “Metastatic at presentation” means the breast cancer has spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes, even though this is the first diagnosis of breast cancer. The reason for this is that the primary breast cancer was not found when it was only within the breast. Metastatic cancer is considered stage IV.