October 6th 2008
The Symptoms Of Breast Cancer
In today’s world, is it that occurrences of breast cancer are growing much more than it was years ago, or it is just that breast cancer is getting more visibility in the press and medical journals? It appears that the answer is a little bit of both.The population is increasing and therefore the actual number of cases is more, although the actual percentage of people diagnosed with breast cancer is not significantly different (although it is higher) than in years past.
Another thing that is equally puzzling is why more people, particularly women where breast cancer is most likely to happen, do not get regular checkups from their doctor to check for it. I know of multiple people who were diagnosed with breast cancer, and when asked when the last time they had a mammogram done to check for the presence of breast cancer, they indicated it had been a number of years. This is truly unfortunate because like most things, if breast cancer is caught as early as possible, the chances of beating it become incredibly greater.
You should be aware of the symptoms of breast cancer, sometimes also known as inflammatory breast caner so that you can see your doctor as soon as possible if these symptoms exist. These symptoms include:
* A breast that appears bruised, or is pink or purple.
* If your breast is feeling tender or firm and enlarged.
* A consistent warm feeling in the breast cancer.
* Pain or itching in the breast that is constant.
* A ridged or dimpled skin texture, kind of like an orange peel.
* Flattened, retracted, swollen or crusted skin around the nipple.
* Lumps or enlarged lymph nodes under the arm or around the collarbone.
|
|
|
|
Another thing that is equally puzzling is why more people, particularly women where breast cancer is most likely to happen, do not get regular checkups from their doctor to check for it. I know of multiple people who were diagnosed with breast cancer, and when asked when the last time they had a mammogram done to check for the presence of breast cancer, they indicated it had been a number of years. This is truly unfortunate because like most things, if breast cancer is caught as early as possible, the chances of beating it become incredibly greater. You should be aware of the symptoms of breast cancer, sometimes also known as inflammatory breast caner so that you can see your doctor as soon as possible if these symptoms exist. These symptoms include:
* A breast that appears bruised, or is pink or purple.
* If your breast is feeling tender or firm and enlarged.
* A consistent warm feeling in the breast cancer.
* Pain or itching in the breast that is constant.
* A ridged or dimpled skin texture, kind of like an orange peel.
* Flattened, retracted, swollen or crusted skin around the nipple.
* Lumps or enlarged lymph nodes under the arm or around the collarbone.
|
|
|
|
August 20th 2008
Advances in methods for diagnosing cancer
According to an article published this month in MIT Technology Review, and thanks to recent advances in medical research, may soon offer a new technique that will allow blood tests to diagnose breast cancer in the first phase of the disease. This represents a breakthrough in treating cancer, since in most cases this disease is fatal because during the first phase the patient has no symptoms and, in many cases, when these begin to appear is because the tumor has expanded so much that is too late to treat successfully.
If doctors were able to detect during the first phase a malignant tumor, the patient could operate well in advance, and remove the tumor without leaving any remaining cancer cells and without resorting to chemotherapy.
Until now the methods that do exist to analyze the presence or absence of a cancerous tumor had been criticised for not being around reliable. Analyses type mammograms, PSA (blood test for prostate cancer) and CA-125 (blood test for ovarian cancer) have a high margin of error. According to David Sidransky, a researcher at the John Hopkins, the PSA system is wrong in 33% of the tests and AC-125 system by 50%.
Thanks to the latest research conducted by the expert in cell biology and cancer George Wright a new method that analyzes the structure of proteins in the blood, in theory allow a tumor to identify with clarity and accuracy of a fingerprint.
It is already in the first phase of a tumor, breast cancer distorts the structure of proteins in the blood, so the ability to monitor this structure and detect any abnormality is a discovery. According to Technology Review, are already doing the first tests on humans of such an analysis to detect breast cancer of the ovaries while other analyses are being developed for prostate cancer, lung, breast, kidney, liver and lymphatic leukemia.
In the future, perhaps with only one drop of blood tests may be made for all types of cancer and achieve drastically reduce deaths caused by this disease.
|
|
|
|
If doctors were able to detect during the first phase a malignant tumor, the patient could operate well in advance, and remove the tumor without leaving any remaining cancer cells and without resorting to chemotherapy.
Until now the methods that do exist to analyze the presence or absence of a cancerous tumor had been criticised for not being around reliable. Analyses type mammograms, PSA (blood test for prostate cancer) and CA-125 (blood test for ovarian cancer) have a high margin of error. According to David Sidransky, a researcher at the John Hopkins, the PSA system is wrong in 33% of the tests and AC-125 system by 50%.
Thanks to the latest research conducted by the expert in cell biology and cancer George Wright a new method that analyzes the structure of proteins in the blood, in theory allow a tumor to identify with clarity and accuracy of a fingerprint.
It is already in the first phase of a tumor, breast cancer distorts the structure of proteins in the blood, so the ability to monitor this structure and detect any abnormality is a discovery. According to Technology Review, are already doing the first tests on humans of such an analysis to detect breast cancer of the ovaries while other analyses are being developed for prostate cancer, lung, breast, kidney, liver and lymphatic leukemia.
In the future, perhaps with only one drop of blood tests may be made for all types of cancer and achieve drastically reduce deaths caused by this disease.
|
|
|
|
|
