What is a breast tumor? 3 prevention tips women should remember!

Breast tumors are caused by lumps in the breasts and are a common breast disease in women, especially in women who breastfeed after giving birth. If the milk is not completely eliminated during weaning, it can easily cause breast tumors. How can we effectively prevent breast tumors?

Clinical manifestations of breast fibroadenoma

The most common site of breast fibroadenomas is the upper quadrant, and most (about 75%) are solitary, while a few are multiple. The characteristic is a painless solitary mass, which is often discovered accidentally during the medical history; the mass is round or oval in shape.

Clinical features of intraductal papilloma

This disease is more common in women aged 40 to 50 years old, and 3/4 of the cases occur in the swollen part of the large milk duct near the nipple. The tumor is very small, with a pedicle and many villi, rich in blood vessels, thin walls, and brittle texture, and it is very easy to bleed.

The main clinical features of breast fibroadenoma

The main characteristics of breast fibroadenoma are painless lumps in the breast, which are common in young women between 20 and 25 years old with vigorous and disordered ovarian function. About 75% to 80% of patients have single-episode lesions, but they can also be multiple.

Causes

1. Age: The incidence rate in women increases with age. It is rare before menarche and before 20 years old, but the incidence rate rises rapidly after 20 years old. It is higher at 45-50 years old but is relatively flat. The incidence rate continues to rise after menopause and reaches its peak at around 70 years old. The mortality rate also increases with age. After the age of 25, the mortality rate gradually increases and maintains an upward trend until old age.

2 Genetic factors: Women with a history of breast cancer in their first-degree family have a 2-3 times higher risk of breast cancer than the normal population.

3 Other breast diseases

4 Age of menarche: The risk of menarche before 13 years old is 2.2 times that of menarche over 17 years old.

5. Age at menopause: Those who reach menopause at age greater than 55 are at increased risk compared to those who reach menopause at age less than 45.

6 Age of first pregnancy: The risk gradually increases with the delay of the first birth age. The risk of first birth after 35 years old is higher than that of those with no childbearing history.

7. Postmenopausal estrogen supplementation: Long-term use of estrogen during menopause may increase the risk of breast cancer

8 Oral contraceptives

9 Food: Especially fatty diet can increase the risk of breast cancer

prevention

1. Establish a new concept of early cancer: Early cancer is not uncommon among patients examined daily, and should be more common than common middle and late stage cancers. This is because in the natural course of breast cancer growth, the preclinical stage accounts for about 2/3 of the entire process. Despite this, early cancer is rarely detected, indicating that most early cancers are missed by examiners during examinations. The main reason is that examiners lack sufficient understanding of early cancer. To date, the vast majority of examiners still use the traditional concept of "breast lump" as the primary sign for diagnosing breast cancer. The aforementioned early cancers may not all form obvious lumps. Under the guidance of this concept, early cancers are bound to be difficult to detect. Therefore, a new concept of early cancer should be re-understood.

2. Carefully check the risk factors for breast cancer: There are many risk factors for breast cancer, the most common of which are as follows: (1) Family history of breast cancer, especially whether the mother and sisters of the examinee have had the disease; (2) Early menarche (before 12 years old) or late menopause (over 50 years old); (3) Lack of childbearing after 40 years old; (4) A history of cancer in one breast, and the contralateral breast is also a susceptible site, etc. Anyone with these factors should be considered as a person who is susceptible to breast cancer and should be the focus of examination.

3. Any abnormality in the breast should be investigated

(1) Nipple discharge, especially bloody discharge, is often associated with breast cancer. In particular, more than half of bloody discharges in women over 50 years of age may be malignant.

(2) Localized thickening of the breast glands is a common but neglected sign in clinical practice. If this happens in premenopausal women, especially when there are some changes in size with the menstrual cycle, it is mostly physiological. If the thickened tissue exists for a long time and is not related to changes in the menstrual cycle, or becomes increasingly thicker and larger in size, especially when it happens in postmenopausal women, it must be taken seriously.

(3) When nipple erosion fails to respond to repeated local treatment, Paget's disease should be considered. If the cell smear positive rate is very high, a diagnosis should be made promptly.

(4) Breast pain in premenopausal women, especially when the pain intensity varies with the menstrual cycle, is usually physiological. If the pain is localized, has a fixed location, is not related to the menstrual cycle, or is in postmenopausal women, the cause should be identified.

(5) Unexplained areola skin edema, nipple retraction, and localized depression of the breast skin all require careful investigation of the causes.

In short, early detection and early treatment are undoubtedly the development direction of breast cancer prevention and treatment. What is urgently needed now is to vigorously popularize the knowledge of early breast cancer detection and diagnosis, widely carry out breast cancer screening and women's breast self-examination, so as to achieve the goal of improving survival rate and reducing mortality rate as soon as possible.