A Very Rare and Deadly Cancer in Men - Breast Cancer

Although breast cancer is more likely to happen in women rather than in men, rare occasions have happened that men acquired breast cancer. And according to a number of studies regarding breast cancer in men, men breast cancer is usually worse compared to breast cancer in women.

Reasons for Higher Mortality Rate One of the many reasons why men breast cancer has higher mortality rate than that of women breast cancer is because men are usually not aware that they have breast cancer. This is the reason why men doesn’t live longer with breast cancer compared to women. On average, according to latest Wellness Philippines news, women with breast cancer lived two years longer than men in the biggest study yet of the disease in males.

Another reason is that male breast cancer possesses larger tumors compared to that of female breast cancer. The study found that men’s breast tumors were larger at diagnosis, more advanced and more likely to have spread to other parts of the body. Men were also diagnosed later in life; in the study, they were 63 on average, versus 59 for women.

A Very Rare Case According to latest Philippines Lifestyle news, the American Cancer Society estimates 1 in 1,000 men will get breast cancer, versus 1 in 8 women. By comparison, 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men.

“It’s not really been on the radar screen to think about breast cancer in men,” said Dr. David Winchester, a breast cancer surgeon in NorthShore University HealthSystem in suburban Chicago who was not involved in the study. Winchester treats only a few men with breast cancer each year, compared with at least 100 women.

The researchers analyzed 10 years of national data on breast cancer cases, from 1998 to 2007. A total of 13,457 male patients diagnosed during those years were included, versus 1.4 million women. The database contains about 75 percent of all U.S. breast cancer cases.

Causes of Male Breast Cancer The causes of breast cancer in men are not well-studied, but some of the same things that increase women’s chances for developing it also affect men, including older age, cancer-linked gene mutations, a family history of the disease, and heavy drinking.

According to latest wellness Philippines news, there are no formal guidelines for detecting breast cancer in men. The American Cancer Society says routine, across-the-board screening of men is unlikely to be beneficial because the disease is so rare.