Health.com : Know the difference between breast cancer facts and fiction? Here’s the real deal on risks, symptoms, and more.
Myth: Only women with a family history of breast cancer are at risk.
Reality: Roughly 70% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no identifiable risk factors for the disease. But the family-history risks are these: If a first-degree relative (a parent, sibling, or child) has had or has breast cancer, your risk of developing the disease approximately doubles. Having two first-degree relatives with the disease increases your risk even more.
Myth: Wearing an underwire bra increases your risk of getting breast cance
Reality: Claims that underwire bras compress the lymphatic system of the breast, causing toxins to accumulate and cause breast cancer, have been widely debunked as unscientific. The consensus is that neither the type of bra you wear nor the tightness of your underwear or other clothing has any connection to breast cancer risk.
Myth: Most breast lumps are cancerous.
Reality: Roughly 80% of lumps in women’s breasts are caused by benign (noncancerous) changes, cysts, or other conditions. Doctors encourage women to report any changes at all, however, because catching breast cancer early is so beneficial. Your doctor may recommend a mammogram, ultrasound, or biopsy to determine whether a lump is cancerous.
Myth: Exposing a tumor to air during surgery causes cancer to spread.
Reality: Surgery doesn’t cause breast cancer and it doesn’t cause breast cancer to spread, as far as scientists can tell from the research so far.
Your doctor may find out during surgery that your cancer is more widespread than previously thought, however. And some animal studies have shown that removing the primary tumor sometimes enables metastatic cancers to grow, but only temporarily; this has not been demonstrated in humans.
Myth: Breast implants can raise your cancer risk.
Reality: Women with breast implants are at no greater risk of getting breast cancer, according to research. Standard mammograms don’t always work as well on these women, however, so additional X-rays are sometimes needed to more fully examine breast tissue.
Myth: All women have a 1-in-8 chance of getting breast cancer.
Reality: Your risk increases as you get older. A woman’s chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer is about 1 in 233 when she’s in her 30s and rises to 1 in 8 by the time she’s reached 85.
Myth: Wearing antiperspirant increases your risk of getting breast cancer.
Reality: The American Cancer Society pooh-poohs this rumor, but admits that more research is needed. One small study did stumble on traces of parabens in a tiny sample of breast cancer tumors.
Parabens, used as preservatives in some antiperspirants, have weak estrogen-like properties, but the study in question made no cause-and-effect connection between parabens and breast cancer, nor did it conclusively identify the source of the parabens found in tumors.
Myth: Small-breasted women have less chance of getting breast cancer.
Reality: There’s no connection between the size of your breasts and your risk of getting breast cancer. Very large breasts may be harder to examine than small breasts, with clinical breast exams—and even mammograms and MRIs—more difficult to conduct. But all women, regardless of breast size, should commit to routine screenings and checkups.
Myth: Breast cancer always comes in the form of a lump.
Reality: A lump may indicate breast cancer (or one of many benign breast conditions), but women should also be on the alert for other kinds of changes that may be signs of cancer. These include swelling; skin irritation or dimpling; breast or nipple pain; nipple retraction (turning inward); redness, scaliness, or thickening of the nipple or breast skin; or a discharge other than breast milk.
Breast cancer has the ability to spread to the underarm lymph nodes, causing swelling in that area before a breast tumor reaches a size that can be detected through touch. On the other hand, a mammogram may pick up breast cancer that has no outward symptoms at all.
Myth: You can’t get breast cancer after a mastectomy.
Reality: Some women do get after a mastectomy, sometimes at the site of the scar. Or the original cancer may have spread. For women at high risk of who have their removed as a prophylactic or preventive measure, there’s still a chance, though a small one, that they can get breast cancer. Prophylactic mastectomy reduces a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer by an average of 90%.
Myth: Your father’s family history of breast cancer doesn’t affect your risk as much as your mother’s.
Reality: Your father’s family history of is just as important as your mother’s in understanding your risk. But to find out about the risk stemming from your father’s side of the family, you need to look primarily at the women; while men do get , women are more vulnerable to it. Associated cancers in men (such as early-onset prostate or colon cancer) on either side are also important to factor in when doing a full family-tree risk assessment.
Some high-risk women also choose to have a prophylactic mastectomy to decrease their risk by roughly 90%. They can take other proactive steps such as having regular MRIs, exploring chemoprevention with treatments such as tamoxifen, and participating in clinical trials.
Myth: Women with lumpy breasts (also known as fibrocystic breast changes) have a higher risk of developing breast cancer.
However, subsequent research has shown that there is no connection between these breast characteristics and the likelihood of developing the disease. However, when you have lumpy breasts, it it can be trickier to differentiate normal tissue from cancerous tissue, so you may experience false alarms. Women with fibrocystic breasts often follow up their mammograms with an ultrasound.
Myth: Annual mammograms expose you to so much radiation that they increase your risk of cancer.
Reality: Although mammography involves the use of radiation, the amount is extremely small, resulting in minimal risks compared to the significant preventive benefits of the test. Early detection significantly improves the chances of survival. The American Cancer Society recommends that women age 40 and older receive a screening mammogram every one to two years.
Myth: Needle biopsies can disturb cancer cells and cause them to spread to other parts of the body.
Reality: There’s no conclusive evidence for this claim. Despite some previous concerns, a 2004 study found no increased spread of cancer among patients undergoing needle biopsies compared to those who did not have the procedure.
Myth: After heart disease, it is the nation’s leading killer of women.
Reality: kills roughly 40,000 women a year in the United States but stroke (96,000 deaths), lung cancer (71,000), and chronic lower respiratory disease (67,000) are each responsible for more deaths annually.
Myth: If your mammography report is negative, there is nothing else to worry about.
Reality: Despite their importance for screening and diagnosis, mammograms fail to detect around 10% to 20% of . This is why clinical breast exams and, to some extent, breast self-exams are crucial pieces of the screening process.
Myth: Removing the entire breast gives you a better chance of surviving cancer than having a lumpectomy with radiation therapy.
Reality: Survival rates are about the same for women who have mastectomies and for women who choose the breast-conserving option of removing only part of the breast and following the surgery with radiation treatments. However, there are some cases—such as with extensive DCIS disease, the presence of BRCA gene mutations, or particularly large tumors—when lumpectomy and radiation may not be an appropriate treatment option.
Myth: Fertility treatments increase the risk of getting breast cancer.
Reality: Given estrogen’s connection to breast cancer, fertility treatments have come under suspicion. But several studies have found that prospective moms are likely to have no higher risk of breast cancer. As yet, no large, long-term, randomized studies have eliminated this concern entirely; it merits more research to find a definite answer.
Myth: Living near power lines can cause it.
Reality: A 2003 study aimed at explaining what appeared to be a high incidence of in certain counties on Long Island, N.Y., found no link between the disease and electromagnetic fields emitted by power lines. An earlier study conducted in the Seattle area yielded a similar conclusion. Research into potential environmental risk factors is ongoing.
Myth: Having an abortion raises your risk of getting it.
Reality: Numerous studies have investigated a potential causal link between abortion, hormone cycles during pregnancy, and , as is associated with hormone levels. However, these studies have found no conclusive evidence for such a link.
Myth: it is preventable.
Reality:No, unfortunately. Although it is possible to identify risk factors such as family history and gene mutations, and lifestyle changes can help reduce the risk, about 70% of women diagnosed with have no identifiable risk factors.
