Detecting Breast Cancer: Recent Developments

The most common form of cancer in women today is breast cancer, which causes hundreds of deaths in America. Approximately 194,280 patients are to be scanned for the disease and doctors estimate that more than 40,000 of them will die. Why should a women die of breast cancer, when necessary precaution is available?

Medical physicists all across the world are now looking forward to improving the current technology to detect breast cancer. At present, the most common way of detecting breast cancer at the moment is Mammography. However its not totally reliable. It has been observed that almost 20 percent of the time, women with dense tissues get passed the screening, even though they may posses cancer symptoms. Such women are recommended to undergo another very expensive test which is known as Magneto Resonance Imaging.

Thanks to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., we now have an inexpensive "molecular imaging" method that can detect cancer symptoms in women with dense tissues in breasts. This method will make the use of radioactive trackers to detect the cancer cells.

Mammograms are a valuable tool to women you would like to detect breasts cancer symptoms, although the X-rays may pose a risk of damaging DNA and future worsen conditions. A technology using a delicate equipment to detect single photons may allow health experts to lower the dose of X-Ray, women receive during a mammogram. In the past couple of years,several trials conducted in European clinics have shown that this technique could possibly lower the radiation doses by fifty percent while efficiently detecting breast cancer.

The latest technique used to detect breast cancer today is more comfortable than mammograms, which eliminates the pain involved during screenings. So this gives another reason to women to undergo a breast cancer check-up. Based on CT(computed technology), the method makes a woman lie down with her face on a special table, with her breast suspended in a cone beam breast CT scanner. Then certain amount of radiation are passed on to the computer to check the patient for cancer cells. At present ,researchers are trying to confirm if the technique is efficient or not.

The most common symptom of breast cancer is a lump, that can be found in the breast or armpit. The following are some other symptoms.
1. nipple discharge
2.pain in the nipples
3. inverted nipples
4. scaly or pitted skin on nipples
5. persistent tenderness of the breast
6. unusual pain or discomfort in breasts

Because prevention is better than cure, its always advisable for women to have regular health check ups. Keeping your yourself stress free, exercising and eating healthy food are some things to make note of. Doctors have observed that women who eat vegetables with a high amount of beta-carotene, are less prone to breast cancer. Some of the vegetables and fruits that fight breast cancer are carrots, spinach, kale, cantaloupe, tomato, grapefruit, watermelon, apricots, broccoli etc.

So if you want to fight breast cancer, eat healthy, exercise regularly and visit your family doctor today.