Breast Cancer Information

There is an interesting and contradictory history between pregnancy and breast cancer.  Most often women hear that pregnancy and breastfeeding help prevent breast cancer.  This is true… to a certain extent.  The younger a woman is when she has her first child the better the preventative effect.  However, a first child born after age 35 nets the mother roughly twice the risk of developing a breast cancer in her lifetime.  That fact alone could account for the increase in breast cancers in our generation. Read more…

The first symptom, or subjective sign, of breast cancer is typically a lump that feels different from the rest of the breast tissue. According to the ”The Merck Manual”, more than 80% of breast cancer cases are discovered when the woman feels a lump. According to the American Cancer Society, the first medical sign, or objective indication of breast cancer as detected by a physician, is discovered by mammogram.

When breast cancer cells invade the dermal lymphatics—small lymph vessels in the skin of the breast—its presentation can resemble skin inflammation and thus is known as inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). Symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer include pain, swelling, warmth and redness throughout the breast, as well as an orange-peel texture to the skin referred to as ”peau d’orange”. Read more…