Cytogenetics and Cancer Research

Prevention of breast cancer is always the fundamental thing to look on in cancer research instead of finding a way for treatment. Most of the practices on breast cancer prevention are only for women with moderate to high breast cancer risk. There are still no guidelines for the prevention of breast cancer for women with average risk. However, how can we identify the group of women at known risk in general population? Thus, it is important for us to know whether we are in risk of breast cancer by knowing the risk factors and do the early detection steps frequently.
 

Breast Cancer Prevention in General

Generally, we can do some prevention steps in our daily life no matter we are in risk or not. Leading a healthy lifestyle is an essential prevention step for all the cancer.
 
1. It is advised that women need to maintain a healthy body weight throughout their daily life without consuming high fat food.
 
2. Women have to do some regular physical activities such as jogging, swimming and so on.
 
3. Breastfeeding is a good practice to prevent the breast cancer.
 
4. Consume diets that rich in grains, fruits and vegetables. Less meat in diet will be too good to be practiced.
 
5. Moderate use of alcoholic beverages. It is too good not to consume the alcoholic beverages at all.
 
6. Minimize yourself from the exposure to exogenous hormones.
 
7. Reduce the sugars in the diet.
 

Breast Cancer Prevention for Women with Moderate to High Risk

There are several ways for the prevention of breast cancer in women at significantly increased risk. Who are those with moderate to high risk in breast cancer?
 
1. Women who are the carriers of BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation.
 
2. Women with multiple affected relative breast cancer presenting at early age.
 
3. Women with family history of breast cancer and so on.
 
There are many options for the women in risk to prevent from breast cancer. Most of the strategies are to remove the tissue which may become cancerous and decrease the endogenous hormone exposure. The most common are bilateral prophylactic mastectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. These two methods are considered highly effective for risk reduction. Both methods are the choices for BRCA mutation carriers. To really reduce the breast cancer risk, the BRCA carriers are recommended to undergo Bilateral Salpingo-oophorectomy by age 35-40 years or after childbearing is completed.
 
In conclusion, it is important for us to recognize the group of women with high risk or moderate risk who will ultimately develop breast cancers. There are many risk assessment can be done through the cancer research. This will reduce the need for many women to unnecessarily undergo aggressive surgery.
 

Prevention is better than cure. Assess your unknown breast cancer risk now!

After introducing the basic knowledge about the breast cancer and some of the risk factors which included our lifestyle and environmental factors, I wish to share about the prevention of breast cancer. I think this is the most important part in this breast cancer series. We have to take action to against the breast cancer!
 

Early Detection

Just like others malignant cancer, early detection of breast tumors are more treatable. When the smaller tumors are detected earlier, a more favourable and details prognosis can be done. This action reserves as the primary defence for all the women, especially for those who are 40 years old and above. There are many recommended methods to use for early detection.
 

Breast Self Exam (BSE)

Monthly breast self exam is the most inexpensive way for regular examination of breast. Although the effectiveness of this method still under questioned by some of the medical experts, the breast self exam are still considered promising and safe method of early detection, particularly for women younger than 40 who still not wish to run the screening.
 

Clinical Breast Exam (CBE)

Clinical breast exam is another less expensive way for regular examination. However, the effectiveness of CBE is still controversial although it is better than BSE. For women at low risk, doing CBE annually still can help to prevent from breast cancer.
 

Mammography

For women at average risk, I will suggest you to do the mammography. It is an effective way for prevention of breast cancer. This is the most public friendly method to detect early stage of breast cancer when still treatable. Sometimes, people will use the result of CBE combining with mammography to increase the screening reliability. However, mammography may be less effective for younger women. The mammography can detect the tumors much earlier than CBE and almost 2 years before detected by BSE. Although mammography is introduced to the public in some modern countries since 30 years ago, there are still a minority of women community do not undergo the screening in those countries. This case happens among the poor people who are unaffordable to pay for it. In addition, there are still a lot of countries that lack of this detection tool.
 

Improved Mammography

There are many effective approaches to enhance the sensitivity and specificity of mammography for breast cancer screening.

1. Digital mammography

• Improved detection rates for younger women and women with denser breasts.

2. Screen film mammography

• Higher sensitivity for women whose breast images are difficult to interpret.

3. Ultrasound

• Used to assist CBE to detect mammogram.
• Fail to detect mocrocalcification and poor specificity.

4. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

• Detecting breast cancer for women at high risk and in younger women.
• Highly sensitive after combining with mammogram and CBE.
• Essential screening tool for women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations to identify early cancer.
• Very expensive and poor specificity. Only recommended to high risk women.

 
In conclusion, earlier detection and treatment both contribute to the prevention of breast cancer. Please do not hesitate to do the earlier detection steps, at least doing BSE monthly to prevent from the developing of breast cancer cell in our body.
 

Have you doing the breast cancer screening before? Come and share with us.