Risk Factors and Stages Of Breast Cancer

Posted by breastcancerresearchaid on July 16th, 2019

Breast cancer is perhaps one of the most fatal cancers in the world. It started to spread rapidly between 2008 to 2010. Although the cancer is fatal but if identified in an early stage it could be prevented from causing any more damage. Just because women particularly in rural areas aren’t aware of self-examinations required for identifying a possible cancerous symptom, they get into ignorance thinking the lump is benign it doesn’t matter much which then turns out to be cancer. Observing the need of spreading knowledge and awareness about breast cancer, many organizations joined hands together from across the globe like breast cancer charities UK, breast cancer charities USA and breast cancer charities France.

Following are some common risk factors involving breast cancer.

1)   Age.

The risk of getting breast cancer increase by the age. Invasive breast cancers are mostly found in women over 55 years of age.

2)   Alcohol.

Excessive amount of alcohol can raise your risk of getting breast cancer

3)   Dense Breast tissue.

If your breast tissues are too thick the mammograms wouldn’t work properly which eventually increase your risk of getting breast cancer.

4)   Gender.

 Black women are 70 times more likely to get breast cancer than black men, similarly white woman are 100 times more likely to get cancer than white men.

5)   Early Menstruation.

Girls experiencing menstruation before the age of 12 are more likely to get breast cancer.

6)   Birth at an old age.

Woman who haven’t had there first child before 35 have a higher risk of getting breast cancer

7)   Inheritance.

Just like the regular cancer, if you have a family history of someone close to you suffering from breast cancer then you have high risk of getting breast cancer.

8)   Who have never been pregnant

Women who have never carried a pregnancy to full term have a higher risk of being a victim of breast cancer.

Understanding the symptoms of breast cancer is very important for self-examinations. Different breast cancer charities in UK and in other countries keep on distributing pamphlets for keeping the local women and people up to date with new methodologies of self-examinations.

Following are different stages of breast cancer. The ideal time period to identify breast cancer is between 0 to 2^nd stage.

• Stage 0 breast cancer

The stage 0 is DCIS. Cancer cells in DCIS stay restricted to the ducts in the breasts and have not yet spread further into any tissue.

• Stage 1 breast cancer

• Stage 1A:  The tumor is about 2 centimeters wide or less and the lymph nodes aren’t affected as yet.

• Stage 1B:  The cancer reaches the nearby lymph nodes. Sometimes there is no tumor, or the tumor is less than 2 centimeters.        

• Stage 2 breast cancer

• Stage 2A: the tumor is smaller but has spread further into 1-3 lymph nodes or it could be larger than 2 cm but still hasn’t spread into lymph nodes.

• Stage 2B: the tumor is between 2-5 centimeters and has spread towards the arm pit or it could be larger than 5cm and hasn’t spread to any lymph nodes.

• Stage 3 breast cancer

• Stage 3A:  In this stage the cancer has spread to about 5 to 10 lymph nodes or has enlarged the internal mammary lymph nodes while the primary tumor could be of any size possible.

• Stage 3B: its when a tumor has surpassed the chest wall or the skin and may have affected up to 9 lymph nodes.

• Stage 3C: Its when the cancer is found near collarbone and has already affected about 9 lymph nodes.

• Stage 4 Breast Cancer

This stage can have a possible tumor of any size, and the cancer has already been spread into numerous lymph nodes as well as some distant organs.