Breast cancer is a phenomenon of uncontrolled proliferation of mammary epithelial cells under the action of a variety of carcinogenic factors. In the early stage, the disease is often manifested as breast mass, nipple discharge, axillary lymph node enlargement and other symptoms, while in the late stage, distant metastasis of cancer cells can occur, resulting in multiple organ lesions, which directly threatens the lives of patients. Breast cancer is often referred to as the “pink killer”, and its incidence ranks first among female malignant tumors, while male breast cancer is relatively rare.
1. Breast cancer classification criteria
In China, breast cancer has become the highest incidence of female cancer, with an annual morbidity of about 420000. According to the literature, the situation of Chinese patients is more complicated than that of European and American patients. Chinese patients are younger, the tumor size is larger, the number of lymph node metastasis is more, and the stage is later, all of which lead to the worse survival prognosis of domestic breast cancer patients than that of European and American patients. Clinically, breast cancer is divided into non-invasive and invasive types according to histopathological findings. Non-invasive breast cancer is divided into ductal carcinoma in situ (ductal carcinoma in situ) and lobular carcinoma in situ according to the growth mode and tissue structure. The cancer cells of this type do not break through the basement membrane of the duct wall or the peripheral milk duct/acinus, and do not metastasize. They are in the early stage and have a good prognosis. However, if they are not detected and treated in time, they may turn into invasive cancer. Invasive breast cancer can be divided into invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, papillary carcinoma, tubular carcinoma, mucinous carcinoma and many other types. Among them, invasive ductal carcinoma is the most common. Cancer cells of this type have broken through the basement membrane and have the possibility of metastasis, and their prognosis needs to be combined with factors such as disease staging and molecular typing. Molecular typing here is a new clinical pathological classification method proposed in recent years based on the intrinsic gene expression patterns and characteristics of breast cancer cells. At present, four markers (ER, PR, Her-2, Ki-67) are used for similar molecular typing in the world, namely, luminal epithelial type, Her-2 expression type and triple negative type.
2. Symptoms
of early breast cancer
Many women think that breast cancer will be the main manifestation of breast pain, breast pain will first worry about whether it is breast cancer. In fact, early breast cancer often does not have specific symptoms and signs, the early manifestation of breast cancer is to find painless small masses, and even some patients can not feel the masses, only through imaging examinations (such as breast color Doppler ultrasound, molybdenum palladium examination) to find abnormalities. Therefore, it is very difficult and inaccurate to judge early breast cancer simply by symptoms. Because the breast is in the superficial position of the body, it is easy to detect breast lumps early, and the early detection of breast cancer seems to be unable to be delayed. However, in real life, many breast cancers are always delayed! Pecially elderly female patients. On the one hand, it is the neglect of regular inspection. On the other hand, even if many elderly people find breast lumps, they are too paralyzed to think that they are fine without pain or unwilling to burden their children. Therefore, women with high risk factors for breast cancer should be checked regularly to detect breast cancer in time.
3. What about early breast cancer?
Early breast cancer should follow the principle of early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment. Breast cancer is divided into four stages: stage I survival rates is about 95%, stage II is about 75%, stage III is about 65%, and stage IV is less than 10%. Therefore, the more early detection, treatment, the better the effect, the later, of course, the more dangerous. However, even if many people find breast cancer, because of fear of surgical treatment, they choose to use informal methods such as “folk prescriptions, massage and even fasting and chanting Buddha” for “treatment”! A year and a half later, he returned to the hospital for a review, only to find that the cancer had become larger or spread, and that it was too late for surgical treatment!
Breast cancer
