October Means Mammograms

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Many hospitals and clinics offer free mammograms. Please have one today! It could save your life.

Breast Cancer and The Pill

Although birth control pills have been only weakly linked to breast cancer in some studies, new research shows that the hormone-heavy pills used 25 years ago may have significantly increased breast cancer risk among women with a family history of the disease.

 

Breast Cancer Prevention

Because 75 to 80 percent of women who get breast cancer have no known risk factors, early detection offers the best hope for surviving the disease. The first step is to understand your risk factors - age, family, and personal history of breast cancer. The next is to follow the early detection guidelines recommended by the American Cancer Society:

 

Breast Cancer Self Examination - Women should examine their breasts monthly beginning by age 20. Over 90 percent of breast cancers are found by women themselves. But because fewer than one third of women perform regular breast self-examinations (BSEs), these cancers are often found when they are over an inch across. In general, the smaller the lump found, the better a woman's chance of long-term survival.

 

Physician Examination - An exam by a physician is recommended every three years until age 40, and then every year. This is an important part of an overall physical exam, but only a supplement to monthly breast self-examinations.

 

Mammography - This examination is recommended once between the ages of 35 and 40 as a baseline (for comparison), and then once a year beginning at age 40. Studies show very high survival rates in women whose breast cancer was first detected by mammography. When a mammogram finds a small breast cancer, usually only the tumor is removed, not the whole breast.

 

Gene Defects Linked to Breast Cancer

Gene defects that trigger an extremely rare and deadly childhood disease may also signal an increased risk of breast cancer. The discovery could help doctors screen women for cancer risks. The disease, Fanconi anemia, affects only about 500 families nationally, but the study found that six genes known to cause it are directly linked to one of the two genes responsible for the inherited risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Symptoms of Breast Cancer

Most people associate breast cancer with a lump, but the symptoms of breast cancer can include a thickening within the breast or the overlying skin, redness of the skin, a change in the shape of the breast, discharge from the nipple, or a change in the shape of the nipple or its retraction. (Eight out of 10 breast lumps are benign; that is, they are not cancerous.)

 

Cervical Cancer Symptoms

For more information about cancer, cervical cancer symptoms include painless vaginal bleeding, an unusual vaginal discharge, and painful intercourse. But often, the only way you will know is by having a Pap smear, a simple, accurate, inexpensive screening test used to identify the presence of abnormal cells in the cervix.

Preventing Cervical Cancer

The cervical cancer risk factors can be lowered by limiting the number of sexual partners, using condoms, avoiding sexually transmitted diseases, and getting regular Pap smears. Catching the disease early is simple and inexpensive, and in its early stages, cervical cancer can be completely cured. If you are at least 15 years old, if you are sexually active, and if you are not having Pap smears every year, do yourself this favor by making an appointment today for this important screening test.

 

Prostate Cancer Risks

Cancer of the prostate gland is one of the most common cancers in men. It's estimated that one out of every 11 men will develop it. Fortunately, prostate cancer is usually a slow-growing type of cancer, and the highest risk is not until after age 55. Because of earlier detection and improvements in prostate cancer treatment, more than 90 percent of patients diagnosed early are alive five years after treatment.

Prostate Cancer Symptoms

There are usually no symptoms in the earliest stages of prostate cancer. Some symptoms of the condition benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), a harmless, but annoying enlargement of the prostate that frequently occurs in older men, may be mistaken for symptoms of prostate cancer.


You should see your doctor if you experience:

Weak or interrupted flow of urine

Inability to urinate or difficulty urinating

Need to urinate frequently, especially at night

Blood in the urine

Painful or burning sensation when urinating

Continuing pain in the lower back, pelvis, or

upper thighs

Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA)

An elevated PSA blood test does not always mean a prostate cancer risk. A temporary PSA elevation is found in prostate infection, benign enlargement, prostate surgery and urinary retention.

 

Colorectal Cancer Risk Factors

The cause of cancer of the colon and rectum isn't known, but it's believed that the disease is associated with a diet high in fat and low in fiber (roughage). Not surprisingly, some colorectal cancer risk factors include that it is more common in Western countries, where the diet tends to be highly refined, with less roughage. People over age 50 are more susceptible, and African-American men have a slightly higher risk. Anyone with a personal or family history of colorectal cancer, polyps in the colon, or ulcerative colitis is at particularly high risk and exposure to asbestos has been identified as a risk factor.

Colorectal Cancer Facts

Colorectal (colon and rectum) cancer is the second most common cancer in the United States. About 150,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. Most develop from polyps, growths that originate in the mucous lining of the colon or rectum. These grow slowly and can be detected by means of effective, easily performed tests, making colorectal cancer one of the most curable forms of cancer.

Tea for Cancer Prevention

Research shows one kind of tea can be up to 100 times more potent at blocking growth of cancer cells than another. While all tea (green, oolong or black) contains antioxidant compounds called catechins that protect against cancer (especially of the lung, breast, colon, stomach and skin) by neutralizing free radicals, green tea contains about 7 times more catechins than black tea. Green tea also has unique catechins that block an enzyme involved in breast, prostate and colon cancers. Green tea is 10 to 100 times stronger than black tea in blocking the growth of cancer cells. Catechins also prevent heart disease and stroke, primarily by defending against the harmful effects of artery-clogging LDL cholesterol.

Cancer Risk Factors

The following are various types of cancer and their risk factors:

Breast Cancer - Family history of breast cancer, obesity, late childbearing and childlessness

 

Bladder Cancer - Smoking (nearly half of cases); bladder cancer is more common in men than women

 

Cervical Cancer - First intercourse at an early age, multiple sexual partners, smoking, history of genital herpes

 

Colorectal Cancer - Being over 50 with colon polyps or ulcerative colitis, family history of these disorders or colon cancer, high-fat, low-fiber diet

 

Leukemia - Exposure to radiation, benzene and other chemicals

 

Lung Cancer - Smoking (83 percent of cases), exposure to asbestos, radiation and secondhand tobacco smoke

 

Lymphoma - Being over 50, no other known risk factors

 

Oral Cancer - Smoking, chewing tobacco and heavy alcohol use

 

Pancreatic Cancer - Smoking, high-fat diet

 

Prostate Cancer - Risk increases with age; more than 80 percent of cases occur after 65

 

Skin Cancer - Fair skin, severe sunburn in childhood, frequent sun exposure and family history of skin cancer

 

Uterine Cancer - Being post-menopausal with a history of infertility, ovulation failure or abnormal bleeding, also obesity, hypertension and diabetes

Startling Facts About Smoking and Cancer

Eighteen little-known facts about smoking that may motivate even a veteran smoker to give up the habit:

 

Cigarette smoke contains tar, made up of over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known to cause types of cancer.

 

Chemicals in smoke include cyanide (a deadly poison), methanol (wood alcohol), formaldehyde (a preservative), acetylene (fuel used in torches) and ammonia (found in fingernail polish remover). It also contains nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide, both poisonous gases.

Smokeless tobacco (snuff) exposes a person to at least 10 times more cancer-causing substances than smoking does.

 

Smoking filtered cigarettes lowers the risk of lung cancer by only about 20 percent.

Smokers are more likely to get pneumonia than are nonsmokers.

 

Smokers are more likely to have and die from stomach ulcers than are nonsmokers.

Smoking causes and worsens heart disease, emphysema, bronchitis, sinusitis, and cancers of the lung, mouth, larynx (voice box), and esophagus (swallowing tube), and increases the risk of bladder, kidney, pancreas, stomach and cervical cancers.

 

Women smokers experience earlier menopause and have less dense bones, making them more susceptible to osteoporosis and hip fractures.

 

Children whose parents smoke are at a higher risk for pneumonia and bronchitis.

 

Diseases caused by cigarette smoking kill about one in four smokers.

 

By the time lung cancer is diagnosed, it has usually spread to other parts of the body. The survival rate is low: only 13 percent are still alive five years after diagnosis, fewer than 10 percent after 10 years.

Lung cancer now kills more women than any other type of cancer.

Smoking takes an average of seven years off a person's life.

Smoking causes one out of every six deaths in the United States.

 

Nine out of ten smokers say they want to quit.

 

More men have quit smoking than women.

 

More than 43 million Americans have quit smoking, and–over the past decade, the percentage of smoking adult Texans has decreased from 31 to 22 percent.

 

Between 1964 and 1985, approximately 750,000 deaths were avoided or postponed as a result of decisions to quit smoking or not to start.

 

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer in America, but it could be prevented 80 to 90 percent of the time if only people would not smoke.