Most women with [breast cancer](https://www.withpower.com/clinical-trials/breast-cancer) will receive treatments including surgery, chemotherapy, and/or hormonal therapy. A small percentage of breast cancers will be cured with some type of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or immunotherapy. Women with a small percentage of ER positive cancers will also receive hormone therapy. The optimal treatment remains debatable.
Many factors, including genetics, environmental exposures and occupational exposures, play an important role in the development of breast cancer. Knowledge of these factors can help in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer, although further research is needed to understand more fully any causal relationship.
Breast cancer is an incredibly complex disease with many variables. We discuss the various subtypes and the causes of different subtypes. Breast cancer forms in the skin (dermis), is in the lobules of the breast (lobules) and infiltrates the breasts and elsewhere in the body. We discuss the various subtypes including invasive, ductal, invasive/metastatic, metastatic and other very rare cancers. The different subtypes are distinguished by the type of cells involved and how the cancer develops. We discuss ways that genetics, estrogen and sex may be risk factors for cancers including breast cancer. We also discuss the role of diet, lifestyle, environmental factors, medications and age in breast cancer risk.
Cancer incidence rates are much higher among women, but the age-adjusted rates have not appreciably changed compared with the period 1981–1985. The most salient difference is the increasing rate of [breast cancer](https://www.withpower.com/clinical-trials/breast-cancer) in white subgroups of women, especially those in their 60s or younger. The lack of a significant decrease in age-adjusted cancer rates in all women is consistent with most cancer incidence studies but contrasts with the trend towards increasing breast cancer rates observed among white women.
Some early indications of [breast cancer](https://www.withpower.com/clinical-trials/breast-cancer) include the lump in the breast, a large lump in the breast when compared to breast size, painless nipple discharge and a family history. Other signs of breast cancer include pain in the breast, nipple pain, a lump in the breast and nipple discharge.
There is no evidence that tumorigenesis can be completely reversed in any human cancer. However, in a number of cases where tumorigenesis was completely reversed, remission and control of disease were observed. In the past, remission was used in a very narrow and outdated sense to refer to a remission that is complete and lasting, i.e. that there is no recurrence. However, the word remission and the word cure are now used in a very different meaning. Complete remission, remission lasting for many months or even years, is no guarantee for the ultimate outcome of the cancer or of the patient. In most cases, the recurrence of the cancer is very difficult to detect, and the chances to cure patients are very low.
Taxanes are typically added to neoadjuvant chemotherapy; combined with other taxanes; in part or full to other antitumor regimens; and as monotherapy. Additional randomized trials are urgently needed to identify effective combinations of paclitaxel with anticancer agents and other biologically active agents.
Lifestyle modification is the major cause of breast cancer. Obesity and obesity-related factors also contribute to the incidence of breast cancer, whereas cigarette smoking and alcohol use have no convincing impact.
The majority of women with early breast cancer can expect 5 years of survival as the long-term disease and overall quality of life does not seem to be compromised by age and overall health.
The authors concluded that adjunctive paclitaxel is safe in the treatment of breast cancer. They reported no clinically significant increase in toxicity with paclitaxel versus capecitabine. Paclitaxel does not require special precautions to avoid inter-patient variation in drug-eluting stent implantation or coronary artery bypass graft surgery in the treatment of breast cancer.
Identifying a hereditary predisposition to breast cancer is difficult, but the incidence of BRCA mutations is very high (5 to 10%). BRCA1,2 and 3 mutations have an earlier age of onset. BRCA2 and 3 cases of breast cancer (63 and 50% respectively) are related to Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. To be useful genetic counselling should be offered as part of a routine genetic counselling to individuals presenting with breast cancer and/or at high-risk population.
Paclitaxel's antitumor activity in vivo has been demonstrated in mice. Paclitaxel shows some degree of activity in human breast tumors grown SC in athymic mice, but no antitumor activity in human breast tumors grown in nude mice. This supports the concept that paclitaxel works differently in different mouse models.