About Stage IV Breast Cancer
Breast cancer tends to leave the breast if it can. Therefore stage IV breast cancer involves a spread to distant organs. By this stage, cancer cells have metastasized, or traveled to other parts of the body. Common sites are the bones, the lungs, the brain or the liver. It may no longer be possible to remove stage IV breast cancer through surgery. Mastectomy may still be deemed necessary to remove the main source of cancer, but if your cancer has reached stage IV, you should begin to familiarize yourself with chemotherapy. Your doctor will most likely order this systemic treatment to find and destroy cancer cells throughout your body. Therefore, the more you know about chemotherapy, the less intimidating it will seem. You should also take this opportunity to ask your doctor any questions you have about the treatment that lies ahead.
An Inflamed Breast Might be Cancer
If your breast is red, swollen, and hot to the touch, it could be a breast infection called mastitis. It could also be a rare but dangerous form of breast cancer.
Inflammatory breast cancer, as the condition is called, affects the breast differently than other breast cancer forms. It does not often begin with a lump or tumor, but rater cancer cells grow rapidly and invade the lymph nodes. This causes a blockage leading to a red, swollen breast. It can sometimes resemble mastitis on physical appearance.
However, if you notice inflammation in a breast, make an appointment with the doctor right away and be sure to ask about inflammatory breast cancer and information about breast cancer diagnosis. Your doctor may feel strongly that mastitis is to blame for your symptoms, but if you are not sure, you can consider asking for additional testing.
About Stage II Breast Cancer
Stage II breast cancer is used to identify the size of the tumor in your breast which is larger than a two centimeters and/or cancer cells have entered the lymph nodes under your arm. Stage II breast cancer is further broken down into stage IIA, in which the tumor is between two and five centimeters or with lymph node involvement and has not spread to distant sites. Or stage IIB, in which the tumor can be less than centimeters with lymph node involvement or greater than five centimeters without lymph node involvement. There is no invasion of cancer cells to distant sites.
If you have stage II breast cancer, discuss with your doctor the different treatment options, which could include removal of the tumor and underarm lymph nodes or a partial mastectomy, as well as radiation therapy.
How Dianosis Of Breast Cancer Is Made
Doctors look at many factors when diagnosing breast cancer. It is a process that may take weeks and require you to talk to multiple doctors. Therefore, waiting for information about a breast cancer diagnosis can take a toll on any woman. Tissue or fluid removed from the breast in a biopsy will be looked at and tested in a laboratory to see if cancer is present. There may be more tests to discover the extent of any cancer that does exist. During these waiting periods, you are likely to feel anxious, irritable, even downright terrified. After all, you might ask, if you have cancer in your breast, is it not it even spreading while you wait? But the delays in receiving a diagnosis are normal. All women suspected of having breast cancer will go through them. Remind yourself that breast cancer, even an aggressive form, is not likely to change significantly in just a few weeks. And while not knowing your final diagnosis can cause worry, it is suggested that you try to cope with the delay of your breast cancer diagnosis by pampering yourself, and planning fun outings to help take your mind off of waiting for the diagnosis.
How Doctors Stage Breast Cancer
Not all breast cancer treatments are created equal. The treatment that is right for you depends on a number of things, and breast cancer staging can help determine this. If you are trying to learn information about breast cancer diagnosis, it recommended that you read about the different stages of breast cancer. Generally all cancers are stage based on the TNM system, in which T stands for the tumor size, N stands for lymph node involvement, and M stands for metastasis or the level of cancer invasion.
Breast cancer staging is a way to classify how advanced a particular incidence of breast cancer is. Staging helps doctors put a name to the cancer, such as how far along it is, how aggressive it is, and how likely it is to respond to different treatments.
Breast cancers are usually divided into one of several stages, from zero to four. Higher stages mean more advanced cancers. Staging is a scientific tool and not entirely an indication of whether you will live or die. It can help guide doctors in how they will treat you. Whether your cancer is a stage 0 (carcinoma in situ) or a stage 4 (spread to distant organs), the goal is the same: treat it so you can go on with your life.
Making Sense of Your Breast Cancer Prognosis
A diagnosis of breast cancer brings about one question more than any other: Will I be able to beat this? Doctors answering this question may speak on the term "prognosis," which simply means what they will expect will be the outcome of your treatment. In truth, a prognosis may not be all that helpful. More than anything, it is a statistic about women your age, in your general health, with cancer similar to yours, and how likely they are to survive. Also every statistic has a margin of error. The decision about whether you want to hear your prognosis or not is up to you, but whatever you do with the information about your breast cancer diagnosis, but remember that a prognosis is only a guideline on how you are expected to do.
About Stage I Breast Cancer
Doctors usually think of cancer in terms of its level of invasiveness. Stage I breast cancer is the first of the invasive stages and is considered an early form of breast cancer. If you have stage I breast cancer, the tumor in your breast is less than two centimeters wide, has not spread to other organs, and cancer cells have not entered your lymph nodes. You can probably expect your treatment to include surgical removal of the tumor and the lymph nodes under your arm, followed by radiation therapy to the affected breast.
About Stage III Breast Cancer
Breast cancers that reach stage III have a bigger presence in the breast and the tissues around it. Stage III breast cancer is further subdivided as IIIA, in which the tumor is smaller than five centimeters with more than four underarm lymph nodes with cancer, or the tumor is larger than five centimeters with at least one positive lymph node. In stage IIIB, the tumor has moved into the chest wall, invading chest muscle and/or lymph nodes in the chest. Stage III breast cancer may be the point at which saving treatments might no longer be a good option. Some combination of radiation, chemotherapy, and mastectomy might be needed to remove the cancer from your body.
Nipple Changes are Worth a Doctor Visit
Red, oozing nipples are not a symptom you would be likely to miss in your own breasts. This symptom might indicate another very rare form of breast cancer, called Paget's disease of the nipple. This form of breast cancer can appear with or without a lump and accounts for five percent of all breast cancers. However, approximately ninety-five percent of all people diagnosed with Paget's disease of the nipple have breast cancer.
Often the only symptom is an oozing nipple accompanied by a rash, sometimes on just one breast. Naturally, if you have a nipple that burns, itches, and oozes fluid, you should head to the doctor. The sooner you can get a diagnosis for this problem, the sooner you can start treating it and getting relief from symptoms, whether the diagnosis is cancer or not.