Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women.¹ About 1.67 million new cases are diagnosed worldwide, and over 500,000 women die of the disease each year.¹ This means that one woman is diagnosed with breast cancer somewhere in the world every 20 seconds and more than three women die of breast cancer every five …
What are the symptoms of breast cancer? Breast cancer typically produces no symptoms when the tumour is small and is most treatable. When it grows in size where it can already be felt, the most common sign is a painless lump. Sometimes breast cancer can spread to the underarm lymph node and cause a lump …
Breast cancer is often staged by looking at the tumour size, the presence, extent, or absence of lymph node involvement, and the presence or absence of spread to other organs. Stage 0 Stage 0 involves ductal carcinoma in situ that is only in the ducts of the breast tissue and has not spread to the …
HR (hormone receptors) are proteins on the surface of cells. Breast cancer cells, like normal cells, have specific receptor proteins that can combine with estrogen or progesterone. Breast cancer cells may grow with stimulation from one or both of these hormones, or they may grow entirely independently of these hormones: This photo is created and …
HR-positive breast cancer is the most common type of breast cancer, accounting for approximately 80% of cases.¹ Breast cancers are considered HR-positive when tumour cells produce abnormal amounts of receptors for the hormones, estrogen and/or progesterone. As these hormones signal cells to grow and divide, having too many receptors on the surface of a cell …
What is Hormone Receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer? Read More »
HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) is a protein that promotes cell growth. It can be found on the surface of all cells, including normal cells. HER2-positive breast cancer cells have an overabundance of the HER2 protein (also known as HER2 overexpression). This amplifies the message to grow that is transmitted to the cancer …
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) refers to breast cancer that tests negative for estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), and HER2 receptors. Neither hormone therapy nor anti-HER2 targeted therapy will therefore be useful for this type of breast cancer. It’s important to remember, however, that there are some effective ways to treat triple-negative breast cancer. Triple-negative …
In metastatic breast cancer, the disease spreads to other parts of the body through the blood or lymphatic system. Cells travel through these pathways and settle in other organs of the body. What is Breast Cancer Metastasis? Formed by metastatic cells, this type of tumor presents itself as the advanced stage of the disease, with …
Image under license from shutterstock.com Breast Cancer Risk Factors Each type of breast cancer has the right treatment – and the choice of the most effective medical intervention for each type of tumor is made after examinations and an in-depth analysis of the patient’s clinical status. Main Causes of Cancer When we talk about breast …
