Breast Cancer on the increase

Young women often make the headlines when it comes to breast cancer. In reality it is women over 50 that are mostly affected with one in 54 being diagnosed but when a leading consultant tells you the diagnosis of breast cancer is on the rise at an unprecedented rate then you want to know why. 

It is projected that by 2024, one woman in seven under the age of 50 will be diagnosed with breast cancer and it could even be worse than that, says Professor Gordon Wishart, consultant breast and endocrine surgeon at Addenbroke’s hospital, Cambridge.  The evidence is out there but where are the preventative measures? Raising awareness, encouraging women to take responsibility for their own health must surely be the way forward to bring the statistics down while at the same time slashing costs to the NHS. It’s a no-brainer.

Women are eager to let the medical profession know what they think about the current situation. It is time for them to join the debate instead of reading about medical professionals debating the issues. Who, after all, is listening on their behalf? Most published information relates to coping once you have been diagnosed. That’s not good enough any more. Why is ‘prevention’ such a dirty word? Both the NHS and cancer charities focus on ‘how to cope’. Is this multi-billion pound industry for the treatment of breast cancer so lucrative there is no interest in reversing the trend?

I recently interviewed Professor Gordon Wishart(1) for a podcast (currently being edited). He is a real forward thinker who is actually promoting breast awareness to help prevent the Big C diagnosis. His innovative research is being widely adopted but one crucial piece of equipment is being overlooked, digital thermal imageing (a heat seeking camera). A non-invasive, non-toxic, procedure where no pain is experienced, as no pressure is applied to the breast and most importantly it can detect cancer cells up to ten years before a mammogram can. A mammogram will pick up tumours only when they reach the size of a small grape or olive, this is often too late to avoid surgery and more importantly, mammograms don’t really work on women under the age of 50, the breast tissue it too dense. Who is advising women how to take preventative measures? Not the NHS, not cancer charities.

It goes without saying that drugs need testing before being released on the general  population; digital thermal imaging will not kill you so the argument that a cohort of 10,000 is required over ten years just doesn’t hold water. All drugs have side-effects. Mammograms and X-rays can be toxic.  Thermal imaging has no side effect. It is currently only available in the private sector.

When you consider that at the age of 40 your chance of diagnosis is one in 235, drastically rising in only ten years to 1 in 54 by the age of 50 the question begs the answer, why is this happening? It is well researched that the hormone oestrogen plays an important role but facing an increased risk of diagnosis to one in seven - that’s the stuff nightmares are made of.

Some of the causes don’t change: being female and having a family history. There are new modern aspects to throw into the mix:

• Having a first pregnancy when you’re older
• Having less children
• Not breast feeding

Then factor in:

• Obesity
• Alcohol
• Smoking

The last points are a modern phenomena. The increase in the consumption of alcohol by women is unprecedented. Obesity is a global epidemic and smoking is on the increase in young people. Join up all the dots and your risk of diagnosis of breast cancer will be increased to one in seven, or worse. Prevention is two-fold; lifestyle changes must be a consideration (once diagnosed, this option is part and parcel of a treatment procedure) and secondly, when cancerous cells are detected in small groups at an earlier stage the risk can be considerably reduced and together with lifestyle changes a healthier future is predicted. Cancer Research UK (3) actually recommends that women request a breast examination with a doctor or well woman clinic once every three years, starting at age 40 but you wouldn’t know that unless your mum or other member of your family had been diagnosed because you wouldn’t normally have any particular reason to visit that website. Why isn’t there a notice in every surgery about this? Surely not because it can only be carried out privately? There are specialist NHS nurses available to show you how to self-check, you just have to ask.

In a recent survey(4) of women, when asked if they wanted screening to continue, 83% were in favour of this. When asked if screening should commence at age 40, 82% were in favour (this already happens in France). When asked if they knew anything about digital image screening a resounding 68% were aware of it (but didn’t know much). An astonishing 84% felt digital image screening should be the first line of defence. The survey also showed that small breasted women experience more pain from a mammogram than larger breasted women. The latter group represented more than 55% of the women completing the survey.

The good news is that women detect 90% of breast lumps themselves so if they knew how and when to check their breasts it would put women in a position of control. This last facility is now being made available free of charge by Breast Health UK (1) and consists of a monthly text to remind women to self-check and there is a short video showing how to do it.

There is another non-invasive method of finding out if any individual is high risk or low risk and this is probably only known by senior consultants in the medical profession. Medical practitioners are using the Tyrer Cuzick questionnaire(3) to establish risk and this method has been found to be the most consistently accurate. Professor Wishart considers this method to be highly effective in providing individual advice.

Dr Nyjon Eccles (5) from The Chiron Clinic in Harley Street, London, another specialist in digital image screening and anti-ageing, corroborates all the evidence thus far and goes on to say that the risk of diagnosis of breast cancer has risen 80% in the last forty years. A developing cancer cell has its own life structure and nurtures itself and this is known an angiogenesis. Digital imaging can detect cancerous cells before women can feel them, especially as there is often no pain present. Dr Eccles agrees that today’s lifestyle is at the crux of the increase in breast cancer diagnosis and other cancers.

In conclusion, younger women remain at higher risk as there are often delays in diagnosis; ‘too young to investigate’. Women of 50+ must be encouraged to self-check as their risk increases with age anyway. More emphasis must be placed on a breast screening programme that is geared towards individual risk rather than one size fits all, covering all age groups. This would be more cost effective than current NHS programmes and will potentially reduce disfiguring surgery and a reduced quality of life dependent on drugs. How much is your quality of life worth?

References:

1. Professor Gordon Wishart and Breast Health UKhttp://www.breasthealthuk.com/ and their breast health check reminder service http://www.breasthealthuk.co.uk/reminder
2. Cancer Research UK  http://www.cancerresearchuk.org
3. Tyrer Cuzick http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14627668
4. Recent Survey: Conducted by SimplyHormones.com http://www.simplyhormones.com – September 2010. E: kathryn@simplyhormones.com
5. Dr Nyjon Eccles http://simplyhormonespodcast.com/2010/07/4-early-detection-of-breast-cancer/ and The Chiron Clinichttp://www.chironclinic.com