Without the White Coat
Staying abreast... the benefits
In every encounter with an illness or a disease entity it is always the knowledge we have learned about that illness that will make life much easier for us to deal with. After last month's 'Breast Cancer Awareness Month' celebration hopefully we have learned everything about breast cancer. Every year updates on breast cancer are always placed on all the medical journals and scientific publications in order to reach a very large population of women afflicted with the big 'C'.
A very close colleague in the practice of medicine who lost his wife at a very young age because of the big 'C' had taught me lessons that early diagnosis and encouraging young females to do a monthly manual breast examinations will surely make a big difference as an early tool of screening.
On basics, breast cancer or the big 'C' usually presents as breast lumps, a visible change in the breast and nipple area (peau d' orange), and appearance of a bloody or clear discharge from the nipple. At an early age of 20 years old we already encourage a monthly breast examination to be performed on day seven (7) to ten (10) starting from the first day of menstruation and suspicion masses and lumps should be referred to your friendly family physician for early diagnosis. Manual should not only be limited to the young, but also on menopausal women on one day a month, for those with breast implants and those pregnant or breast-feeding mothers. Aside from the monthly manual breast examination other screening test like mammography is also advocated. Baseline examination of mammography are instituted at the age of 35 years old, then every year to two years thereafter for those on the high risk category, for the non-risk groups of females at 50 years of age and older every year. Since we mentioned about risk groups then who are at risk? It is always a basic knowledge that breast cancer will run in the family among the female flock, so let us set the record straight. First degree relative with breast cancer among the female flock, multiple affected members, and bilateral involvement are just for starters. Others will include at an older age of 50 years and above, onset at a young age before 30 years old, a history of breast cancer form other breast, an exposure to ionizing radiation at childhood (cobalt), a known mutations of BRCA1/BRCA2 (markers) that are hereditary, late menopause at 50 years, and lastly postmenopausal obesity.
As the years pass we never understand the importance of breast mammography among the female population, for some big and large corporations and companies mammograms had been part of their yearly employee's diagnostics examination. The benefits of mammograms are an early diagnosis, thus an early treatment, then more lives are saved. An early diagnosis, that can give us a better quality of life (no radical treatment), and lastly early detection, will always improve the chances of survival.
A simple breast examination will always make a big difference in dealing with the big 'C', make BSE (Breast Self-Examination) as part of a periodic health exam for non-risk groups of women 20 to 30 years old of age every 3 years, and for those 40 years old and above every year, for those high risk women 20 to 35 years old every 6 to 12 months, for those 35 years old and above every 3 to 6 months and on the advise of her family physician.
These early steps of prevention and diagnosis will surely make a big difference and dent on the big 'C'. A new drug that had been tested showed a dramatic reduction of recurrence type of breast cancer in the earlier stage after chemotherapy, in 6,500 patients it shows prolonged survival rates with advanced HER2 breast cancer in its early stage. The new drug as another addition to the armaments in the battle against the big 'C' is HERCEPTIN (Trastuzumab), a monoclonal antibody, produced in the US by GENTECH (1998), the drugs block the activity of the protein to prevent the cancer's recurrence (recurrence rate slashed at 46 percent).