Symptoms and treatment of occult breast cancer

  Breast cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in women, it is the first in incidence and the fourth in mortality rate of female malignant tumors in big cities in China, breast cancer has become the biggest threat to women’s health. What is more frightening is that a special type of breast cancer is difficult or even impossible to find the lesion on the breast, so it is difficult for patients to detect it at an early stage, and it is also very difficult for breast surgeons to find it, which is like an invisible killer of women’s health.  Occult breast cancer is a rare and special type of breast cancer. Although its incidence only accounts for 0.3-1.5% of breast cancers, it is often a greater threat to women’s health because it is difficult to detect and diagnose. Most of the common breast cancers come to the doctor with breast lumps as the first symptom, while occult breast cancer comes with swollen axillary lymph nodes as the first symptom. Women have more fatty tissues in the armpits and the lymph nodes are deep in them, and only when the metastatic cancer grows to about three centimeters will the patient feel it, or even invade the nerve tissues to produce pain is the patient discovered, and by this time, the disease has often been developed for a long time, which means that the local The predominance of advanced cancer.  When small bumps and lumps appear in the armpits, you should go to a breast specialist in the first place to avoid delaying the disease. Some time ago I was in the breast clinic when a 59-year-old woman came to see me and said she had found a lump in her armpit for more than half a year, because it did not hurt or itch and did not delay eating or drinking, so she did not take it seriously, but now it hurts and affects her arm movement. The publicity and popularization work done by our medical workers is far from enough.  This is the first step in the treatment process when you visit a breast surgery clinic. Then your doctor will make the correct diagnosis and design a treatment plan that is right for you. This particular type of breast cancer is difficult to detect and difficult to diagnose. Most metastatic cancers in the axilla are caused by breast cancer, but other sites of cancer can also metastasize there, such as nasopharyngeal, thyroid, gastric, and ovarian cancers, and these diseases must first be ruled out in order to make that diagnosis. Mammograms and ultrasounds of both breasts are routine examinations and are useful for detecting lesions in the breast. If mammography and ultrasound cannot detect breast lesions, a mammogram should be performed, followed by further pathological examination. The pathological examination can be done by fine needle aspiration cytology, enlarged lymph node biopsy surgery and hollow needle biopsy. For those who are diagnosed with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the axilla in the above pathological examination, and at the same time exclude other sites of cancer, they can be initially included in the category of occult breast cancer. The histological structure of metastatic carcinoma in axillary lymph node metastases is sometimes suggestive of its origin, while immunoenzymatic markers, such as positive estrogen receptors and progesterone receptors, are instructive in suggesting breast origin, etc., but the disease cannot be excluded in those with negative expression of these receptors.  The treatment of occult breast cancer is still controversial. I believe that the treatment of this disease still requires an aggressive attitude, insisting on individualized, systemic and systematic approach, and not just radical breast surgery or breast-conserving surgery. The pathology of this disease suggests that in about 1/3 of patients, no primary cancer of the breast is found in the final total mastectomy specimen. Based on this study, it is not necessary to remove the breast in all patients with this disease, because the breast is a very important organ for women, not only physically but also psychologically and in all aspects of marriage and family, and it is the responsibility of the surgeon to make sure that the breast is removed and the breast is preserved, so that the treatment can be done in the best possible way. For mammograms and mammograms to find the primary lesion, we also need to perform intraoperative rapid cryopathological examination, breast-conserving surgery for single lesions, and radical surgery for multiple lesions. In cases where the primary foci cannot be found preoperatively, active surgery should be performed without observation and waiting, and the most suspicious quadrant should be identified by mammography and MRI for rapid pathological examination, and the breast can be preserved if it is still negative. In this case, a total mastectomy is an extended treatment.  Post-operative chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and radiotherapy are the same as those for general breast cancer. All in all, we must take our health and life seriously, you are a part of the family, and if you are gone, the family will be broken with you.