MALE BREAST CANCER

 

Male Breast Cancer

Breast cancer has always been associated with women. Year after year this disease claims the lives of many women but believe it or not, men could also suffer from such a disease. What is male breast cancer?

Male breast cancer is often very much the same as that of women, though it is more unlikely to develop in men and accounts for a very small percentage of the overall cases of breast cancer. Male breast cancer results from abnormalities in the breast tissue.

The symptoms of this disease are swelling and discharge from the nipples, puckering of the skin and the usual lumps in the breast that could also be found in women breast cancer.

This cancer is highly dangerous for men because majority of them beleieve that this type of disease could only be developed in women so they tend to ignore its symptoms, even though breast cancer is more easily detected in men as they have fewer breast tissue.

What makes some men prone to breast cancer invloves different factors. One of these factors is the heredity of mutations in genes. This most often occurs when there are already cases of gene mutations in the family. Older men are also more prone to having breast cancer, quite unlike women who can develop this disease at an early age.

Men who intake estrogen or female hormones in their bodies are more prone to acquiring breast cancer than those men who don't. There are cases when estrogen is used as a treatment for prostate cancer but it may increase a man's risk of breast cancer.

Men should also watch out for their weight because being overweight also increases the risk of having breast cancer, especially those who are already obese or nearing obesity. Lacking proper exercise also adds to this sickness (which makes a man overweight in the first place), so the only preventive measures are proper diet and exercise. As for the hereditary factor, there is still no prevention applicable.