Breast CancerAn Overview of the Disease

Killing Thousands

What is Breast Cancer?

• A disease that forms from cancerous cells in the breast

• Cancerous cells are most commonly found in the lobules of the breast

How Do You Get Breast Cancer?

• 12% of women get breast cancer before they’re 80 years old

• Factors:– Family history – Reproductive history – Alcohol consumption – Old age – Race/Ethnicity– Diet and Exercise

Biology Behind Breast Cancer

• Mutated BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes

Stages of Breast Cancer

Symptoms of Breast Cancer• Lumps in the breast• Substances other than milk secreting from the nipple• Inverting of the nipple• Peeling nipple skin • Change in size and or • shape of the breast • Irritation of the skin over the breast such as flaking, redness, and indenting.

Surgery Lumpectomy Mastectomy

Chemotherapy• Regimens

Radiotherapy• Damages DNA

Not So Fun Facts• About 1 in 8 women in the United States (12%) will develop invasive

breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.

• About 39,840 women in the U.S. were expected to die in 2010 from breast cancer, though death rates have been decreasing since 1990.

• About 1,970 new cases of invasive breast cancer were expected to be diagnosed in men in 2010. Less than 1% of all new breast cancer cases occur in men.

• For women in the U.S., breast cancer death rates are higher than those for any other cancer, besides lung cancer.

• More than 1 in 4 cancers in women (about 28%) are breast cancer.

• In 2010, there were more than 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S.

Bibliography• http://www.breastcancer.org/ • http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/breast-ca

ncer/DS00328/DSECTION=symptoms• http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/br

east

• http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/statistics.jsp