What is Breast Cancer?
Cancer is a deadly disease that can be fatal if left untreated. One common type of cancer is breast cancer. Breast cancer is in 1 in every 10 cancer diagnoses worldwide and is the second most common cause of death for feminine cancer-related deaths. It is a well hidden disease that mutates frequently and is commonly discovered during screenings. This can also occur for men but is a much lower percentage. Breast Cancer can be considered an epidemic and affects 1 in every 8 women in the United States, killing 41,000 women a year. Most breast cancer patients are affected in the later years of their life and fatality is more common in senior citizens.
Formation
Breast cancer formulates when DNA is damaged due to carcinogens. Normally, the immune system stops the damaged cells from reproducing, but the mutations allow the DNA to pass the checkpoints during cell division and the cancer cells viciously multiply. Breast cancer patients don’t complete the job of removing bad DNA, and after some time, the damaged cells cluster up and this is how tumors are formed and cancer is started.
Classifications
Breast cancer is classified with the TNM classification system, which groups patients into 4 stage groupings based on the primary tumor size (T), the regional lymph nodes status (N), and if there is any distant metastasis (M).
T1: Less than 2 cmT1a: 0.1 to 0.5 cmT1b: 0.5 to 1.0 cmT1c: 1.0 to 2.0 cm
T2: 2 to 5 cm
T3: Larger than 5 cm
T4T4a: Chest wall involvementT4b: Skin involvementT4c: Both 4a and 4bT4d: Inflammatory ca
Regional Lymph Nodes (N)
N1: Mobile ipsilateral axillary nodes
N2: Fixed/matted ipsilateral axillary nodes
N3N3a – Ipsilat infraclavicular nodesN3b – Ipsilat int mammary nodesN3c – Ipsilateral supraclavicular nodes
Distant Metastases (M)
M1: Distant metastases
Stage 0 Tis
Stage IT1N0
Stage IIT2N0, T3N0 T0N1, T1N1, T2N1
Stage III
*skin, rib inv., matted LNs T3 N1 T0N2, T1N2, T2N2, T3N2 Any T, N3 T4, any N Locally advanced BC
Stage IV
M1 Adv. BC
Survival Rates
The prognosis of breast cancer gets worse as time passes. Stage 0 and stage I have a 100% 5-year survival rate. The 5-year survival rate of stage II and stage III breast cancer is about 72% – 93% . Only 22% of stage IV breast cancer patients will survive their next 5 years.