Breast Cancer Personal Check

Over the last quarter of a century, largely due to the efforts to increase public awareness of breast cancer, its effects and possible cures, more and women are taking it upon themselves to carry out personal checks to recognize the earliest signs of the disease’s onset in their body.

A steady increase per capita in the incidences of this cruel disease, and more than 11% of the female population of the western world have been diagnosed as suffering from breast cancer. If caught early enough in its development, breast cancer can be treated, and it is now no longer the leading cause of death in cancer sufferers in percentage terms, that being taken by lung cancer. Statistics are unclear as to whether heart disease of breast cancer is the principal cause of mortality among women who have passed through the menopause.

Conventional medicine began to recognize the necessity of early diagnosis of breath cancer. To this end, health centers throughout the western world have instigated mammography tests for women in their fifties upwards. These tests are carried out annually or at least bi-annually in most cases. However, according to the availability of the expensive and specialist equipment required to conduct a mammography test, in certain cases, they are only carried out every five years.

In recent years, proponents of alternative methods of treating breast cancer have begun to express their doubts of the effectiveness and necessity to carry out a mammography. Their claim is that the benefits are questionable for screening women under 50 years of age. In fact that the minuses far outweigh the pluses, that number: later ill effects from the radiation they are exposed to during the mammogram If there is a tumor in place it may well advance through the patient's body due to the pummeling that the breast takes during the screening. A further point against carrying out mammography screening is that statistics show that the screening misses 10-15 per cent of early breast cancers.

Personal checks carried out almost on a daily basis are now regarded as the most effective treatment for early diagnosis of breast cancer.

Women describe this as searching for something you don’t want to find, and in many cases the temptation is not to look at all. However a daily breast check should become as much a part of a daily routine as brushing your teeth or combing your hair. Any sign of the smallest change in the breast, any lump either soft or hard, should be more than sufficient reason for a visit to a doctor or health center for further examination.

The realization that breast cancer need not be fatal and can be treated without the need for surgery or chemo therapy has increased the determination in women to stand up and face this cruel disease.

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