Breast Cancer Awareness is Year-Round

What would you think if someone told you that they could save you from losing about 20 years of your life? What's the catch? Billions of dollars?

How about minutes a day every month if you're over the age of 20, a clinical breast exam mammogram once a year if you're 40 or older.

Sound to good to be true? Not according to the American Cancer Society (ACS), which also estimates that in 2003 there will be 211,300 new cases of breast cancer in women and as many as 39,800 deaths from the disease.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, designed to increase awareness among women of the importance of early detection of breast cancer through regular self-examinations and mammograms. However, awareness of breast cancer and early detection of this disease should be a year-round process that can add years to your life.

What is it?

SImply put, breast cancer is a malignant tumor that has developed within cells of the breast. These are several different kinds, but some of the most common breast cancers are considered non-invasive (they haven't spread to other tissue or parts of the body) and may be treated successfully if found early. Regardless of the type, early detection and treatment allows for the greates chance in recovery.

While many breast lumps  are benign (non-cancerous), any time a woman detects an abnormal lump, swelling, change in skin texture, bleeding or oozing or other unusual condition, it's time to see the doctor.

An Ounce of Prevention

Some apparent lifestyle-related risk factors for breast cancer are under a woman's control. They include heavy alcohol use, cigarette smoking, obesity and a lack of regular exercise. Other factors to be discussed with your physician include oral contraceptives and longterm estrogen replacement therapy.

Then there are things you can't control, such as a family history of breast cancer and aging. The risk of a woman developing breast cancer increases as she gets older, and the breast cancer risk is higher among women whose close blood relatives have this disease. Having a mother, sister or daughter with breast cancer almost doubles a woman's risk.

Sometimes You Have To Go Looking for Trouble.

Find it early, get it treated. There's no simpler way to enphasize that the best weapon against cancer is early detection. For women, that means performing regular breast self examinations. They're not dofficult or time-consuming -- it'll take a lot less time than you probably spend reading the morning newspaper, and you need to do it once a month.

If you find a lump, schedule an appointment for a mammography (an x-ray of the breast) right away. In general, women 40 or older should have a screening mammogram every year whether or not they feel a lump. Women 20 to 39 should have a physician perform a physical breast examination every three years.