Breast Cancer Awareness-Stage 0,1 and Stage 2

Introduction:

Breast cancer is cancer that forms in the cells of the breasts.

After skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the United States. Breast cancer can occur in both men and women, but it's far more common in women.

Substantial support for breast cancer awareness and research funding has helped create advances in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Breast cancer survival rates have increased, and the number of deaths associated with this disease is steadily declining, largely due to factors such as earlier detection, a new personalized approach to treatment and a better understanding of the disease.

Epidemiology:

According to a study by Globocon 2020, In India, every four minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer. With some 1,78,000 new cases being diagnosed every year, the incidence of breast cancer has overtaken cervical cancer to become the most common cancer in Indian women.

What is more alarming is that it is being increasingly diagnosed at a younger age (a decade earlier) in India compared to the West. With 90,000 deaths per annum, tragically, a woman loses her life to breast cancer every eight minutes in the country. For every two women diagnosed with breast cancer, one dies of it.

The global burden of BC is expected to cross almost 2 million by the year 2030. In India, the incidence has increased significantly, almost by 50%, between 1965 and 1985. The estimated number of incident cases in India in 2016 was 118000 (95% uncertainty interval, 107000 to 130000), 98.1% of which were females, and the prevalent cases were 526000 (474000 to 574000). Over the last 26 years, the age-standardised incidence rate of BC in females increased by 39.1% (95% uncertainty interval, 5.1 to 85.5) from 1990 to 2016, with the increase observed in every state of the country.

Risk factors :

Risk Factors of BREAST CANCER

Risk Factors You Can't Change

Risk Factors You Can Change

Symptoms of Breast Cancer:

Symptoms of BREAST CANCER

WARNING SIGNS OF BREAST CANCER TO NEED
MEDICAL ATTENTION

Stages of BREAST CANCER:

Stage 0:

Stage 0 breast cancer is not invasive, though it could be later. It’s less advanced than stage I cancer.

There are two types of stage 0 breast cancer:

Noninvasive Paget’s disease, a rare form of breast cancer in the nipple
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). This is what most people mean when they talk about stage 0 breast cancer. The abnormal cells are still in your milk ducts and haven’t affected the fatty tissue that makes up most of your breast. There’s no known cause, and most people don’t have any symptoms, though you may notice a lump or bloody discharge from your nipple. The abnormal cells may or may not become invasive and start to spread. There’s no way to predict if this will happen.
LCIS – Lobular carcinoma in situ

Stage 0-LCIS:

Lobular carcinoma in situ at Stage 0 generally is not considered cancer. Although it has carcinoma in the name, it really describes a growth of abnormal but non-invasive cells forming in the lobules. Some experts prefer the name lobular neoplasia for this reason because it accurately refers to the abnormal cells without naming them as cancer. LCIS, however, may indicate a woman has an increased risk of developing breast cancer.

How should you treat it?

If you’re diagnosed with DCIS, your pathology report will come with a grade. Nuclear grade 3 is the most likely to spread; nuclear grade 1 is the least likely. You should also have a test to see if your cancer cells have estrogen receptors. (Your doctor might call this ER-positive or ER+.) If they do, it's a sign that your cancer might progress more slowly.

Meanwhile, your doctor may suggest that you get genetic testing. It can find changes in your genes that may boost your breast cancer risk.

What happens next depends on all of these factors, as well as your personal choice. Most experts agree that you should get some type of treatment. Even though stage 0 cancer is noninvasive, that could change. Most doctors would say it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Notes about ER postive and ER Negative For BREAST CANCER:

About 80% of all breast cancers are “ER-positive.” That means the cancer cells grow in response to the hormone estrogen. About 65% of these are also “PR-positive.” They grow in response to another hormone, progesterone.

If your breast cancer has a significant number of receptors for either estrogen or progesterone, it’s considered hormone-receptor positive.

Tumors that are ER/PR-positive are much more likely to respond to hormone therapy than tumors that are ER/PR-negative.

STAGE 1:

In Stage 1 breast cancer, cancer is evident, but it is contained to only the area where the first abnormal cells began to develop. The breast cancer has been detected in the early stages and can be very effectively treated.

Stage 1 can be divided into Stage 1A and Stage 1B. The difference is determined by the size of the tumor and the lymph nodes with evidence of cancer.

Stage 1A:

The tumor is smaller than the approximate size of a peanut (2 centimeters or smaller) AND has not spread to the lymph nodes. (2.5 centimeters=1 inch)

Stage 1B:

Lymph nodes have cancer evidence with small clusters of cells between the approximate size of a pinprick to the approximate width of a grain of rice (.2mm to 2.0 mm).AND EITHER No actual tumor is found in the breast.OR The tumor is smaller than the approximate size of a peanut (2 centimeters or smaller). (2.5 centimeters=1 inch)

Treatment:

Surgery is standard treatment for this stage. Since the tumor is small, you may have a lumpectomy-- just the tumor and some of the tissue around it are removed. Some women get a mastectomy, in which the whole breast is removed. In either case, the surgeon will likely take out one or more lymph nodes.After a mastectomy, you might choose to have breast reconstruction surgery.

Radiation therapy can kill cancer cells that were missed. It’s usually given after a lumpectomy. Women with stage I cancer who get a mastectomy sometimes need radiation, too.

Chemotherapy after surgery can lower the risk of the cancer coming back. The drugs attack cancer cells. Women who had larger tumors removed are more likely to get chemo.

Stage 2:

Stage 2 breast cancer is considered invasive, meaning that cancer cells have broken out of the ducts or lobules of the breast. This is not the same as metastatic (stage 4) breast cancer. It means that abnormal cells have passed through a thin layer of tissue called the basement membrane and have the potential to spread.