Breast Without Spot Cds Group

21/05/2023

https://www.austintommy.com.ng/2023/05/21/the-latest-advances-in-mammography-technology/

Breast Anatomy Basics The breast is a glandular organ located on the front of the chest in both males and females, although it is more developed in females. It consists of specialized structures that are involved in milk production and breastfeeding in females. The breast is composed of several main...

11/05/2023

https://www.austintommy.com.ng/2023/05/11/malignant-breast-disorders/

Breast Cancer Risk Factors Breast cancer is a complex disease influenced by various risk factors, some of which can be modified or managed, while others cannot be changed. Here are several risk factors associated with breast cancer: Gender: Being female is the most significant risk factor for breast...

11/05/2023

https://www.austintommy.com.ng/2023/05/10/benign-breast-disorders/

Major types of breast lumps There are several major types of breast lumps that can occur in both women and men. It's important to note that not all breast lumps are cancerous, and many of them are benign (non-cancerous) in nature. However, any new lump or change in the breast…

23/06/2017

Several lifestyle changes can improve outcomes after a breast cancer diagnosis, but exercise is far and away the best habit to establish, researchers say.

Women with breast cancer, whether newly diagnosed or at any time in their "survivorship" phase, need to exercise regularly and avoid weight gain, said Dr. Ellen Warner from Odette Cancer Center at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, who coauthored the research review.

Warner and her colleague Julie Hamer joined forces to review nearly 70 articles that addressed lifestyle modifications that might have an impact on the risk of breast cancer recurrence and survival after breast cancer.

They found that regular physical activity can reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer by 40 percent compared to women who didn't exercise. Unfortunately, less than 13 percent of women with breast cancer achieve the recommended 150 minutes per week of physical activity.

"Exercise has the greatest benefit on lowering risk of recurrence and has many other secondary benefits like helping with weight management (which itself lowers the risk of recurrence) and fewer side effects from chemo, radiation, and hormone therapy.

Gaining weight during or after breast cancer treatment is risky - it increases the chance of recurrence and decreases survival rates, the review concludes.

Women who are already overweight or obese also have a higher risk of recurrence and death, but it's not clear whether weight loss actually improves those outcomes. Studies are underway to examine this further, the researchers write in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Does diet matter? Yes and no. Breast cancer recurrence rates are similar whether women eat a diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and chicken or a diet high in processed grains, processed meats and red meat. But high dietary saturated fat can increase the risk of death from breast cancer. Soy products, however, do not increase the risk of breast cancer recurrence and might even reduce it.

"Women with breast cancer don't need to make extreme diet changes (like cutting out meat, dairy, sugar, soy, etc.)," Warner said. "There is no evidence any of these are effective. They can eat anything in moderation and following Canada's food guide would be helpful if they don't know much about nutrition."

Women with breast cancer - well, everyone, really - should stop smoking. It's strongly associated with the risk of death from breast cancer, and stopping improves overall survival.

What about alcohol intake and vitamin supplementation? The evidence is limited and inconsistent, so further study is needed before making specific recommendations, the team notes.

"There's a large ongoing Canadian study of women age 40 and under newly diagnosed with breast cancer called RUBY, and one of the projects in this study is to look at how various lifestyle factors (diet, exercises, supplements, etc.) affect prognosis for that specific age group," Warner said.

"Adopting a healthy lifestyle is great but should never be seen as a substitute for conventional therapy," she concluded.

In their review, the authors note that very few of the included studies met the highest standards of clinical trials.

Dr. Livia Augustin from St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and the Fondazione Giovanni Pascale National Cancer Institute in Naples, Italy, has, along with others, designed a clinical trial (DEDiCa) to investigate whether low glycemic index diet, exercise and vitamin D reduces breast cancer recurrence.

"People with breast cancer suffer from several comorbidities, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis, and therefore many health complications; therefore, quitting smoking, increasing vitamin D when necessary, increasing physical activity, and improving dietary aspects are crucial therapeutic targets to reduce complications and health care costs as well as help to live longer with a better quality of life.

23/06/2017

Women go through a lot to look and feel beautiful, but it turns out some of the products you’re using on your hair might actually have a negative impact on your health.

In a new study by Rutgers University, researchers recruited 4,285 African-American and Caucasian women, both with and without breast cancer aged 20 to 75, to explore a possible link between certain hair care products and their risk of developing breast cancer.

The study's authors examined established probable breast cancer risk factors, like family and personal health history, hormone use and lifestyle. They were particularly interested in the women’s use of specific hair products, such as chemical straighteners/relaxers, hair dyes and conditioning treatments containing cholesterol and placenta.

They discovered that dark brown and black hair dyes were associated with a 51 percent increased risk of developing breast cancer among African American women and a 72 percent increased risk of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer among African Americans. The researchers also found that use of chemical relaxers and straighteners was associated with a 74 percent increased risk among Caucasians, with some differences in breast cancer risk observed by estrogen receptor status.

According to The National Cancer Institute, there are over 5,000 different chemicals used in hair dye products, some of which are reported to be carcinogenic, and an estimated one-third of women over the age of 18 use some type of hair dye.

Authors of the study admit that more research needs to be conducted to further examine “the link between the use of hair products as important exposures that may contribute to the development of breast cancer, as well as ways to reduce the associated risks,” according to a press release.

09/03/2016

Millions of women could have their chances of developing breast cancer slashed with a tablet used to treat diabetes that costs just 10p a day

The discovery of a link between cheap diabetes treatments and a dramatic reduction in the risk of breast cancer could bring hope to millions of potential victims.

And medical experts welcomed news that 10p-a-day pill metformin could slash the chances of getting the leading cause of the disease by 40%.

The tablet reduces a woman’s risk of having dense breasts – which contain less fatty tissue and more
non-fatty tissue such as milk-making and draining glands. It is a major factor behind tumour development.

But the study also found taking insulin appears to double the risk of having denser breasts.

Lead researcher Dr Zorana Jovanovic Andersen will today present the ­findings of a Danish study that found the link to the European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam.

The University of Southern Denmark scientist said: “We found women with diabetes, who take oral medication or control it by diet only, have lower breast density than women without diabetes. Both groups have about 40% lower odds of having dense breasts, than women without diabetes.”

This is the first time breast density risk coupled with diabetes treatments has been studied. The discovery may pave the way for drugs like metformin, used to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes, to be ­recommended for cancer ­prevention.

Chair of the Amsterdam conference Professor Fatima Cardoso said: “This study shows clearly that a link between diabetes treatment and breast density, an important risk factor for the disease, has been made.

“I hope this will lead to further research into the effect of cheap, easily available drugs such as metformin, not just on breast density, but on breast cancer risk overall.”

Women with dense breasts are up to six times more likely to develop a mammary tumour.

The research involved 5,644 women who attended mammographic screening between 1993 and 2001.

Breast Cancer Care chief executive Samia al Qadhi said: “These findings offer a fascinating insight into the impact different diabetes ­treatments may have on breast density. This could improve the way we screen women with dense breasts. The less dense, the easier it may be to detect cancer.

“But we must remember no one risk factor can be looked at in ­isolation. The biggest for breast cancer remain the same… being female, and getting older.”

Scientists say it is unclear why dense breasts increase the chances of developing cancer. More than 50,000 British women are diagnosed with the disease every year.

13/01/2016

Table sugar may increase the risk of breast cancer, according to a new animal study from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Previous research has drawn a link between higher sugar intake and breast cancer development, suggesting inflammation as a source, but the current study instead looked at the role of sugar in mammary gland tumor development.

The study, published Friday in Cancer Research, found that mice with sucrose intake comparable to levels of Western diets had a greater risk for tumor growth and metastasis, compared to mice on a non-starch sugar diet.

“This was due, in part, to increased expression of 12-LOX and a related fatty acid called 12-HETE,” Peiying Yang, Ph.D., an assistant professor of palliative, rehabilitation, and integrative medicine at MD Anderson, said in a press release.

The study found that at six months of age, 30 percent of mice on a starch-control diet had measurable tumors, while 60 to 58 percent of mice on sucrose-enriched diets developed mammary tumors.

In addition, the mice on a sucrose- or a fructose-enriched diet were at an increased risk of cancer spreading to their lungs, compared to those on a starch-control diet.

09/10/2015

Early detection is key to surviving breast cancer. Help more people become breast cancer aware by sharing this page.

06/09/2015

Long-time smokers may face an increased risk of death if they develop breast cancer, according to a Japanese study that adds to a growing body of evidence highlighting the lethal effects of ci******es.

Among more than 800 women with breast cancer, those who had smoked for more than two decades had at least triple the odds of dying of any cause, or from breast cancer in particular, compared with women who never used ci******es.

Fewer years of smoking were also linked to an increased risk of death from breast cancer, but the extra risk was so small that it might have been due to chance.

Other studies have explored the connection between smoking and survival among breast cancer patients, but the current research is among the first to assess the impact of the duration of smoking on outcomes for women with this type of tumor, said study co-author Dr. Masaaki Kawai, a breast oncologist at Miyagi Cancer Center Hospital in Japan, in email to Reuters Health.

Worldwide, breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women. About one in nine women will eventually develop it, according to the National Institutes of Health. The risk increases with age, from 1 in 227 at age 30 to 1 in 26 by age 70. Factors such as obesity, inactivity, alcohol use or early menstruation can increase the risk.

For the current study, Kawai and colleagues followed 848 women who were treated at the Miyagi Cancer Center Hospital between 1997 and 2007 for newly diagnosed breast cancer.

Women who described themselves as current smokers were typically younger when their breast cancer was diagnosed, about 49 years old on average, compared with 53 for women who claimed to be former smokers and 58 for nonsmokers.

The current smokers also tended to weigh less, have more advanced tumors, and have fewer health complications than the other women in the study.

With half of the women in the study followed for at least seven years, the researchers saw 170 deaths from all causes – including 132 deaths from breast cancer.

Roughly one third of the women hadn’t yet gone through menopause when they started the study. In this subset, those who had smoked for more than about 21 years were three times more likely to die of any cause, and nearly three and a half times more like to die of their breast cancer, than those who never used ci******es.

Researchers also examined exposure to second-hand smoke among women whose husbands were current or former smokers and found no significant impact on the women’s risk of death from any cause or from breast cancer specifically.

One limitation of the study is its reliance on patients to accurately report information about their exposure to ci******es, the researchers acknowledge in the journal Cancer Science. The study also lacked data on second-hand smoke that didn’t come from the women’s spouses.

Even so, the findings add to a growing body of research pointing to the specific risks smoking poses for women with breast cancer, said Peggy Reynolds, a researcher at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and Stanford University School of Medicine.

“There are now quite a few studies suggesting that active smokers diagnosed with breast cancer have poorer survival – not to mention accumulating evidence that smokers may have a greater risk of developing breast cancer,” Reynolds, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

This study, however, didn’t look at whether smoking causes breast cancer.

Even if not all of the evidence is conclusive, it should still be enough to motivate patients to abandon ci******es, said Mia Gaudet, strategic director of breast and gynecologic research at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, in an email.

“Regardless of whether or not a woman has breast cancer, quitting smoking is likely to be the best lifestyle change a woman can make to improve her health,” she said.

06/09/2015

According to new government predictions, the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer will rise by as much as 50 percent by 2030. Researchers say the increase in tumors will be fueled by the hormone estrogen. While this is a natural hormone produced by the body that is responsible for reproduction and bone growth in both men and women, environmental exposure to xenoestrogens— an unnatural sub-category of estrogen— is at an all-time high.

Xenoestrogens can be found in everything from the food you eat to the products you use in the shower. When your body is exposed to xenoestrogens, it affects how your body breaks down natural estrogen and can even mimic estrogen in the body. These effects lead to a dangerous state known as estrogen dominance.

Estrogen dominance

Estrogen dominance is a form of hormone imbalance that can contribute to increased inflammation throughout the body, as well as disease, including testicular, uterine or breast cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Xenoestrogens, like Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and Bisphenol A, promote estrogen dominance by changing the rate at which estrogen is broken down by the body or mimicking estrogen and binding to its receptors in the body. Both scenarios cause an abundance of estrogen and an increase in the overall effects of estrogen on the body, leading to symptoms of hormone imbalance. Some of these effects include infertility, mood swings, headaches, foggy thinking, fatigue, sleep disturbances, hot flashes and digestive issues and, among men, gynecomastia (man b***s).

Aside from these symptoms, too much estrogen can also have another devastating effect: DNA damage. DNA damage is a pathway to disease and the extent of this damage is affected by two things: your genetics and your environmental exposures. Newer studies show that our environment can affect whether certain genes are expressed. This concept is known as epigenetics.

You already know that you can’t change your genetics. Indeed, some individuals are predisposed to metabolize estrogen at higher rates, increasing the risk of breast cancer and other diseases. Your environmental exposures, however, are vastly in your control and can influence your genetics— increasing or decreasing inflammation and, ultimately, your risk of disease.
Epigenetic factors that influence inflammation levels include exposure to xenoestrogens, stress levels, weight, physical activity, sleep quantity and quality, nutrition, and lifestyle choices, such as smoking or alcohol consumption.

Estrogen and inflammation

High levels of inflammation in the body are notorious for increasing the risk of heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease, but inflammation fueled by estrogen dominance can also have multiple (and very scary) effects on the body.

The recent increase in estrogen-positive breast cancers and the explosive increases predicted in the coming years are largely correlated with the high rate of overweight and obese individuals in developed countries.

Estrogen can be created in fat cells. Too much fat increases inflammation, affecting the breakdown of estrogen. One inflammation pathway related to estrogen is known as the obesity-aromatase-inflammation-axis. When this pathway is initiated, inflammation upregulates the enzyme, aromatase, increasing the conversion of testosterone to estrogen.
Excess inflammation also shrinks the number of progesterone receptors in the body, inhibiting sensitivity to progesterone, which balances estrogen and acts as a natural anti-inflammatory.

Decreasing inflammation

As mentioned, inflammation levels are heavily influenced by your environment and can have an impact on your epigenome—a record of the chemical changes to your DNA that can result in changes to the structure and function of your genome. How you manage your weight, what you eat and how often you exercise are just a few of the ways you can influence inflammation levels in the body and—for better or worse—your genetics.

A 2013 randomized test on premenopausal women revealed that increasing aerobic fitness and lean body mass, while also decreasing body fat, lowered the risk of breast cancer among subjects. To effectively achieve these goals, aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise, five times a week.

Experts, and even the public at large, are now acutely aware of the intense influence diet can have on disease prevention. This is because the foods you eat can not only help you manage a healthy weight and reduce inflammation, but those choices can be key determinants in the level of exposure to dangerous toxins, like xenoestrogens. Fresh, locally grown, organic whole foods should dominate your diet. Cruciferous vegetables are rich in sulfur-containing compounds, and have been shown to lower the risk of several types of cancers. These vegetables include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, and kale.

In addition to drinking more water (from a non-plastic, BPA-free container), you may also try adding green tea to your diet. Studies show green tea can promote weight loss, and its catechins have also been proven to protect cells against DNA damage. Flax seeds are another easy way to promote healthy outcomes through your diet. Flax seeds contain phytochemicals that appear to reduce the risk of breast cancer and inhibit the action of excess estrogen in the body. Grind flax seeds to optimize benefits, and sprinkle them on top of your favorite foods.

Targeted supplementation is also important for reducing inflammation and promoting hormone balance. Curcumin, resveratrol and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) are potent inflammation-fighters. In a September 2013 study, all three of these phytonutrients blocked activation of NF-kb (an inflammatory signal in the body) in the presence of saturated fatty acids known to induce inflammation, as well as blocking inflammation that upregulates aromatase. Evening primrose oil has been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects, reduces PMS symptoms, and reduces progesterone resistance.

The enzyme aromatase, known for increasing the conversion of testosterone to estrogen, is upregulated by obesity, alcohol consumption, age and insulin levels. Quercetin, glycyrrhiza (found in licorice), grape seed extract and resveratrol are shown to naturally inhibit aromatase.
Stress management and sleep are important factors as well. Practicing relaxation and mindfulness techniques, along with making plenty of quality sleep a priority in your daily routine, can significantly reduce inflammation levels.

Understanding that the environment and genetics determine how estrogen is processed by the body is important, but recognizing that there are things you can do to protect yourself from estrogen dominance and the threat of breast cancer is crucial to your health and quality of life.

27/06/2015

Many women diagnosed with breast cancer, especially younger women, are concerned about their ability to have children after treatment. Some breast cancer treatments can cause temporary infertility or make it harder to get pregnant after treatment ends. Other treatments, especially certain chemotherapy regimens, can cause early menopause and infertility.

A study has found that freezing embryos created from eggs extracted before treatment allowed women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer treated with chemotherapy to become pregnant at rates similar to women not diagnosed with breast cancer who underwent in vitro fertilization.

The research was published online on June 22, 2015 by the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Read the abstract of “Fertility Preservation Success Subsequent to Concurrent Aromatase Inhibitor Treatment and Ovarian Stimulation in Women With Breast Cancer.”

The study involved 131 women younger than 45 years who had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer (stage I through stage III):

34% of the women were diagnosed with hormone-receptor-positive disease
24% were diagnosed with HER2-positive disease
18% of the women had an abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene
85% of the women ended up being treated with chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery
57% of the women ended up taking tamoxifen after breast cancer surgery
Harvesting mature eggs from a woman’s ovaries before she starts breast cancer treatment is one way to preserve fertility. Without fertility drugs, only one or two eggs, at most, per cycle will be harvested. With fertility drugs, as many as eight to 10 mature eggs can be released and harvested. But using traditional fertility drugs greatly increases the amount of estrogen in the body, and that may fuel the growth of hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer cells.

To protect the women in the study from the risks of higher estrogen levels, the researchers created a special combination of medicines to stimulate egg production. The new combination uses the aromatase inhibitor medicine Femara (chemical name: letrozole) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) to stimulate the ovaries to produce more eggs. An early study showed that this new combination worked just as well as traditional fertility drug combinations.

The women received the Femara/FSH combination and when their eggs were mature, they were removed from the women during a short outpatient surgery and then fertilized in a test tube with s***m from a partner or donor. This is in vitro fertilization. The fertilized eggs grew briefly into tiny embryos and were then frozen. Freezing embryos or eggs is called cryopreservation.

Of the 131 women in the study, 33 women returned to the clinic to have a frozen embryo transferred into their bodies or into a surrogate carrier.

The women who used a surrogate carrier did so for one of two reasons:

they were taking tamoxifen, which can damage developing embryos
they were concerned about the safety of pregnancy
Overall, the 33 women underwent 40 embryo transfer attempts:

18 women had the embryos transferred into their own bodies
22 women had the embryos transferred into a surrogate carrier
About half the embryo transfers were done more than 5 years after the embryos were frozen and about half were done less than 5 years after the embryos were frozen.

The women were an average age of 41.5 when the embryo transfers were done.

The embryo transfers resulted in 18 pregnancies and 25 babies delivered:

seven of the 18 pregnancies (38.8%) produced twins
there were no birth defects reported in the children
17 of the 33 women attempting to have children had at least one child
14 of the 25 babies were born to surrogate carriers
The researchers reported that the overall live birth rate per embryo transfer was similar to the U.S. national average among infertile women of about the same age who hadn’t been diagnosed with breast cancer who underwent in vitro fertilization embryo transfer.

“Our findings contribute to the safety track record of the [Femara] protocol and indicate that [Femara] has no detrimental effect on the [egg], the resulting embryos, or the offspring,” the researchers wrote. “Given this sustained track record, we surmise that the [Femara] protocol should be used more commonly to offer the possibility of fertility preservation by established cryopreservation methods in women with breast cancer.”

If you’re a younger woman diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and are concerned about preserving your fertility, this study is very encouraging. You might want to ask your doctor about the Femara/FSH fertility drug combination for egg harvesting and whether it makes for your unique situation.

If you are worried about having children after breast cancer treatment, it’s important to talk to your doctor about fertility preservation as you are planning your treatment. You also can ask for a referral to a fertility specialist for counseling before treatment begins.

02/05/2015

England and QPR defender announces death of his ‘guide and inspiration’ from cancer