Breast cancer is a cancer that starts in the breast, usually in the inner lining of the milk ducts or lobules. There are different types of breast cancer, with different stages (spread), aggressiveness, and genetic makeup. With best treatment, 10-year disease-free survival varies from 98% to 10%. Treatment includes surgery, drugs (hormone therapy and chemotherapy), and radiation.
Worldwide, breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer a...
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Breast cancer is a cancer that starts in the breast, usually in the inner lining of the milk ducts or lobules. There are different types of breast cancer, with different stages (spread), aggressiveness, and genetic makeup. With best treatment, 10-year disease-free survival varies from 98% to 10%. Treatment includes surgery, drugs (hormone therapy and chemotherapy), and radiation.
Worldwide, breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer (10.4% of all cancer incidence, both sexes counted) and the fifth most common cause of cancer death. In 2004, breast cancer caused 519,000 deaths worldwide (7% of cancer deaths; almost 1% of all deaths).
Breast cancer is about 100 times as frequent among women as among men, but survival rates are equal in both sexes.
Some breast cancers require the hormones estrogen and progesterone to grow, and have receptors for those hormones. Those cancers are treated with drugs that interfere with those hormones, usually tamoxifen, and...
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