Breast Cancer Is Also For Men
Joan was taking a shower when he discovered he had a lump in her breast. They did not give too much importance and even spent several months until he decided to go to the doctor for a look. That was when he was diagnosed “with metastatic breast carcinoma” was the official name. Breast cancer.
The year was 1981. Joan is now 62, and is perfect. Its revisions have been distanced in time and simply go to the doctor once a year to verify that the tumor does not recur. “The doctor says he would not even need to go, but I do it for my own peace of mind”, he says, adding with humor “at my age I have to watch my cholesterol, prostate … so a revision means nothing. ”
In the U.S. press this week echoed the case of Senator Edward Broke, who has just published his illness. Yes, he too was surprised by the diagnosis. «Breast Cancer? “Me?”. Yes, men can get breast cancer, but statistically your chances are much lower than those of women. Between 0.5 and 1.5 women per hundred cases or so. That is, more or less, for every hundred female patients, a single man.
Although the symptoms, treatment and outcome of the disease are exactly like those of women, the majority of men suffering from this disease as something discovered later, when malignant cells have already spread outside the breast tissue. The reasons are simple, no man thinks he can get this disease, traditionally attributed exclusively female, and many go to the doctor when several months have passed since the appearance of first symptoms. Therefore, the cancer is often already more advanced than women.
This may give the wrong impression that men die more, but the statistics indicate that survival is similar, the differences can only be measured according to the stage where the cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, each year about 1,500 diagnosed cases of cancer among men, of whom about 400 die. In front of them, an estimated 40,000 of the 211,000 new cases detected in women end up in death. In Spain, according to the National Institute of Statistics, in 2000, 55 men died of this disease, compared with 5677 women.