Testing your one breast

Logo of breast cancer

Logo of breast cancer

The hope of your breast:

Less painful treatment thrills women, but unless breast cancer is caught early, the promise is hollow. Mammography is still the yearly test of choice for women over 40. And scientists are working hard to develop refinements, replacements or add-ons.

Sharper Pictures:

 Digital mammography uses X-rays but depends on sensitive digital receptors to record the image. The picture has more gradations between its bright and dark areas than a conventional mammogram does, says radiologist Daniel Sullivan, chief of the biomedical imaging program at the National cancer institute, so it offers more information. A direct comparison with standard mammography in 50,000 women is under way. 

        Two other imaging techniques also offer hope for better diagnoses: magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound. These are well known, but are only now being studied as potential breast cancer screening tools. One big advantage is that they easily “sea” through the dense breast tissue that can confound mammography.

Breast Cell Test:

Breast cancer

                         Breast cancer

 

In three types of tests, doctors gather cells from breast ducts, where most breast cancers arise, and examine them for precancerous or cancerous cells. The tests offer early detection, but ductal lavage and micro-endoscope can’t be called noninvasive since a doctor must snake a hair-thin catheter into ducts to collect cells. Nipple fluid aspiration uses a device similar to a breast pump. Studies of the test are encouraging, but Sullivan worries that suspicious cells may be missed if it’s in an inaccessible duct.

Saliva Sample:

Researchers are investigating whether testing a woman’s saliva (or perhaps her blood ) can show whether she has breast cancer or maybe see if cells that are abnormal are threatening to become cancerous. The approach is based on the fact that all cells secrets chemicals and abnormal cells secrete different chemicals than normal cells do. Such a test is five to ten years away.     

Sincere to Brest Cancer

Identify the sell

In an operating theatre in London’s Middlesex hospital, Jasik jole lies unconscious. Sterile green gowns drape her body, leaving exposed only her right breast and outstretched arm. Linda has breast cancer, in the upper part of her breast, a mass of runaway cells has grown to about the size of a pea. Given her age -55-and thesize of her tumour, Linda is typical of the thousands of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer each year. But her experience is about to take a sharp turn from the typical. After the tumour is neatly excised, surgeon Jayant Vaidya reaches for a slim probe with a tiny metal sphere at one end  and inserts it into Jasik jole breast. She is going to deliver radio waves directly on to the tumour site. 

Logo of breast cancer

      Satisfied with the probe’s position, he signals for the electron generator to be switched on. To the sound of a gentle beep, it begins generating “soft” X-rays, which pass out through the sphere.

      Twenty-five minutes later, Vaidya removes the probe and inspects the small incision. He nods to the team: “looking great” with a couple of stitches he closes it up.

      If all has gone well, not only has the tumour in Jasik jole breast been destroyed, but any rogue cells have been mopped up, eliminating the need for weeks of radiotherapy. This is the targeted intra-operative radiotherapy.

Internal mammary nodes

 

        Learn more, cut less: That’s a quick summary of the trend over the past century, as researchers have figured out more about how breast cancer grows and what makes it deadly. Treatment is by no means an east ride; for one thing, some of the new techniques have simply been added onto sledgehammer regimens as a way to lower mortality further. But treatment is getting a little less grueling and more effective every day. The number of breast cancer deaths remains high the International Agency for Research on Caner’s database show that is 2002, the most recent figures available, there were 58,495 new cases and 26,818 deaths from the disease across Southeast Asia alone. However, experts feel the situation well get better. “As more new and effective treatments are development and become less costly, the number of deaths should drop and survival should improve,” says Dr Yip Cheng-Har, consultant breast surgeon at the University Malaya Medical Centre in kuala Lumpur. Here are some of the most promising new breast cancer treatments. 

Effect of breast cell