Myths in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment
1. The occurrence of breast cancer is mysterious and unpredictable and cannot be prevented. Although the exact cause of breast cancer is still unclear, the role of acquired factors such as poor lifestyle such as sedentary, excessive fat diet and excessive estrogen exposure in its development has been confirmed. Reasonable changes in these bad habits can undoubtedly play a role in stopping or delaying the occurrence of breast. Some statistics show that a good lifestyle can significantly reduce the occurrence of breast cancer.
2. Breast lumps are not painful and do not need to be taken care of. This view is especially serious in many rural and remote areas.
3.Breast is a female symbol and cannot be removed. Most of the women who hold this view are in the performing arts, entertainment or white-collar knowledge sectors. I once met an actress from a local art troupe. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer and recommended to have her breasts removed, she was adamant that she would rather die than have her breasts cut. In fact, everyone has a love for beauty. Mastectomy is a necessary step to cure breast cancer, and breast removal can be rebuilt to bring back the beauty of women.
4. Breast cancer is a female disease and has nothing to do with men. Many people are surprised when they hear that men have breast cancer: how can men get breast cancer? In fact, it is not that men do not suffer from breast cancer, but the prevalence rate is much lower than that of women.
5.After surgery and chemotherapy, everything will be fine. Surgery, chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and the current molecular targeted therapy are all effective treatments for breast cancer, and they do greatly reduce the chance of recurrence of breast cancer. However, it is not necessarily true that all patients who receive the above treatments will stay away from breast cancer forever, and some even recur and metastasize 10 years after surgery. Therefore, the regular detection of breast cancer after surgery should be insisted for a long time.
6.Chinese herbal medicine and food therapy can cure cancer at root. At present, the best way to overcome cancer is comprehensive treatment, which has formed a consensus in academic circles. Chinese medicine is an important treasure of China’s medical treasury and has played a great role in preventing the occurrence of diseases and promoting human health. However, certain propaganda nowadays over-exaggerate the role of Chinese medicine and food therapy, as if no matter what kind of cancer and what stage of the disease, it can be cured as soon as Chinese medicine and food therapy are used. These misleadings have caused many patients to lose valuable time for treatment and caused huge economic losses, which should really be discarded.
Early symptoms of breast cancer
The prognosis of breast cancer is closely related to the early stage of the disease. The five-year survival rate of early stage breast cancer patients can be as high as 98%, while late stage breast cancer becomes an incurable and only controllable disease. Therefore, early detection and early diagnosis of breast cancer is of great significance. To detect breast cancer early, one must be alert and aware of the early features of breast cancer.
Generally speaking, early stage breast cancer has the following characteristics.
1. Lumps. The lumps in early breast cancer can be small and in most cases there are no obvious accompanying symptoms such as pain, while a few have paroxysmal hidden pain, dull pain or stabbing pain. However, regardless of the size, these lumps have the characteristics of “round, bulging and hard”, i.e. close in length, fullness and hard texture, which are obviously different from benign lumps.
2. Changes in the appearance of the breast. The main manifestations are skin elevation at the breast lump, or local skin orange peel, or even edema, discoloration, eczema-like changes, etc.
3. Abnormal or invaginated nipples. The skin of the breast has mild sunkenness, nipple erosion, nipple asymmetry, or the skin of the breast has thickened and thickened, and the pores have increased.
4. Nipple overflow. A small number of people may have bloody or watery nipple overflow.
5. Regional lymph node enlargement. Enlarged lymph nodes in the ipsilateral axilla are most common.
If you find any of the above abnormalities, you should visit a professional medical institution in time to detect breast cancer early.
To detect breast cancer at an early stage, women are encouraged to conduct regular self-examinations.
Self-examination should follow the steps of one look and two touch
One look: Take off your shirt and take a standing or sitting position, face the mirror, fully expose both breasts, with both hands hanging down naturally, face the mirror, carefully observe both breasts for any abnormalities, such as the position, size and symmetry of nipples, whether both nipples are in the same plane, whether nipples are overflowing or retracted, whether there are indentations, edema and nodules on the breast skin; then, pinch your waist with both hands, lift your chest and observe your breasts according to the above points.
Second touch.
Manipulation 1: Use the crossover technique to check the opposite breast (right hand to check the left breast, left hand to check the right breast): join the three or four fingers outside the thumb and touch the whole breast in turn with the circle movement of the finger belly. If there is a lump, you can feel it slide under your fingers. After completing the above steps, gently press the areola with your hand, and pay attention to whether there is any overflow when squeezing the nipple, and be careful not to miss the examination of the lower part of the armpit and the area between the armpit and the breast.
Manipulation 2: Put together the remaining four fingers except the thumb, press against the chest wall, and touch each area of the breast in order by alternating light pressure with each finger. Normal breasts are softer, and when there is a lump it feels like something is sliding under the fingers.
We sincerely wish all women to get out of the misconceptions and stay away from breast cancer and stay beautiful and healthy forever.