Acerca de
Breast cancer in men
Women are more likely to have breast cancer than males, but men may get it too. A lot of people don't know that males have breast tissue and that they may get breast cancer. Cancer may start in almost any place of the body and spread to other parts.
Cells in the breast start to grow out of control, which is how breast cancer occurs. These cells frequently form a tumour that you may feel as a bump or see on an x-ray. If the cells can develop into (invade) nearby tissues or spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body, the tumour is malignant (cancer).
Men account for fewer than 2% of all breast cancers in the Americas.
Both men and women have breasts that are made up of fatty tissue, fibrous tissue called stroma, nipples, ducts (tubes that deliver milk to the nipples), and lobules (glands that make milk). Girls' breasts expand throughout puberty because of hormones in their bodies. Boys' hormones stop their breasts from growing, thus their breast tissue remains smaller. Ductal carcinomas, which start in the milk ducts, are the most common kind of breast cancer in males.
roughly 2,710 American males will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022, and roughly 530 of them will die from it. About 1 in 1,000 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives.
Men who find out they have male breast cancer early on have a decent chance of being cured. Most of the time, treatment is surgery to take off the breast tissue. Depending on your circumstances, your doctor may suggest alternative therapies including chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
Breast tissue in men
Before puberty, which usually happens around age 9 or 10, boys and girls have a limited amount of breast tissue made up of a few ducts that are beneath the nipple and areola (the region surrounding the nipple). When a girl goes through puberty, her ovaries create female hormones. This makes the ducts in her breasts develop and the lobules form at the tips of the ducts. Boys and men usually don't have a lot of feminine hormones even after they hit puberty, thus their breast tissue doesn't expand much. Men's breast tissue contains ducts, but not many lobules, if any.
When breast cancer cells get into the blood or lymph system, they may travel to other regions of the body.
The lymphatic system is made up of lymphatic vessels that run through the body. Lymph veins link lymph nodes and convey lymph fluid. Lymph nodes are tiny, bean-shaped groups of cells that make up the immune system. Lymph vessels are similar to tiny veins, except they transport a clear fluid called lymph out from the breast instead of blood.
Lymph is made up of immune system cells, tissue fluid, and waste materials. Lymph vessels may let breast cancer cells in and start to proliferate in lymph nodes. Most of the lymph veins in the breast empty into:
* Lymph nodes under the armpit (axillary nodes)
* Lymph nodes that are around the collar bone, both above and below it (supraclavicular and infraclavicular lymph nodes)
* Lymph nodes in the chest close to the breast bone (internal mammary lymph nodes)
There is less knowledge and study on male breast cancer since there are not as many instances of it as there are of it in women. Consequently, therapy recommendations for male breast cancer often rely on research conducted on female breast cancer.
Sadly, males are typically diagnosed with breast cancer after it is well advanced. The major reason is that males don't have regular mammograms as women do to identify breast cancer early on when it is simpler to treat. Men may not know they might have breast cancer, so they don't normally check for changes in their breast tissue. They may not even know they should see a doctor about a lump, discomfort, swelling, or other symptoms.
Things that make men more likely to have breast cancer
As men become older, their chance of getting breast cancer goes up. In North America, the average age of males who are diagnosed with breast cancer is around 67. But young males may also get breast cancer.
A family history of breast cancer
If a guy has a close family who has had breast cancer, his chance of getting it is up, particularly if that relative is male.
Changes in DNA
Men who have specific genetic mutations from their moms or dads are more likely to get breast cancer. A male with a /BRCA1/ mutation has around a 1% chance of getting breast cancer in his lifetime, whereas the ordinary guy has a 0.1% chance (about one in 1,000). A guy who inherits a /BRCA2/ mutation has a 7% to 8% chance of getting the disease.
Changes in the /ABM/, /CHEK2/, /PALB2/, and other genes are also associated to breast cancer in males, but we need to do more study to find out how these changes affect the risk.
A lot of estrogen
Testosterone is a hormone that is mostly found in men, whereas estrogen is a hormone that is mostly found in women. The fact is that men and women have different amounts of testosterone and estrogen in their systems. Men have less estrogen than women, although they all have it in their bodies. Having more estrogen in your body might make you more likely to have breast cancer. Men (and those who were born masculine) may have high estrogen levels because of:
Androgen suppression treatment is a kind of hormone therapy for prostate cancer. Hormone treatment that transgender women take as part of their transition from male to female (sometimes termed feminizing hormone therapy or gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy)
Klinefelter's syndrome. This genetic condition occurs when males are born with more than one X chromosome. Klinefelter's syndrome results in improper testicular development. Consequently, males with this disease have diminished levels of certain male hormones (androgens) and elevated amounts of female hormones (estrogens).
* *Liver illness. Some disorders, such cirrhosis of the liver, may lower male hormones and raise female hormones. This makes you more likely to have breast cancer.
* *Being overweight.* Obesity is linked to elevated estrogen levels in the body, increasing the risk of male breast cancer.
* *Surgery or illness of the testicles.* Orchitis, or having inflamed testicles, or having surgery to remove a testicle (orchiectomy) may make you more likely to have male breast cancer.
**having a testicle that hasn't dropped yet
**Radiation exposure* Men who have had radiation therapy to the chest, including for Hodgkin lymphoma, are more likely to have breast cancer.
Men may get many types of breast cancer, such as:
*Carcinomas* are the most common kind of breast cancer. Breast cancers are often classified as adenocarcinomas, originating in glandular tissue. Breast adenocarcinomas originate in the ducts (milk ducts) or lobules (milk-producing glands).
There are other less frequent kinds of breast cancer, such as sarcomas, phyllodes, Paget's disease, and angiosarcomas. These tumours develop in the cells of the muscle, fat, or connective tissue.
Invasive breast cancer of a specific kind
Some kinds of breast cancer are sub-types of invasive carcinoma. They are substantially less prevalent than the breast cancers that were mentioned before.
Some of them may have a higher or worse chance of survival than regular infiltrating ductal carcinoma.
* Adenoid cystic (or adenocystic) cancer * Low-grade adenosquamous carcinoma (this is a form of metaplastic carcinoma)
* Medullary carcinoma * Mucinous (or colloid) carcinoma
* Papillary carcinoma * Tubular carcinoma * Metaplastic carcinoma (includes spindle cell and squamous, except low grade adenosquamous carcinoma) * Micropapillary carcinoma * Mixed carcinoma (has traits of both invasive ductal and lobular)
In general, these sub-types are still treated as regular infiltrating carcinoma.
Signs and symptoms
Some signs and symptoms of male breast cancer are:
* A lump or thickening in your breast tissue that doesn't hurt
* Changes to the skin on your breasts, such dimpling, puckering, redness, or scaling
* Changes to your nipple, such redness or scaling, or a nipple that starts to curve inward
* Leakage from your nipple
* A bump in the armpit
*Rash or sores on the nipple and areola (the black region surrounding the nipple)
*Change in the breast's size or shape
Finding out whether a man has breast cancer
Doctors employ a variety of different tests to find out whether someone has breast cancer and, if they do, if it has spread beyond the breast. We also employ diagnostic testing to learn more about the cancer so we can make better judgments about how to treat it.
If you have signs that you could have male breast cancer, your doctor may suggest one or more of the following tests:
breast physical exam, mammography, ultrasound, and biopsy
If you have breast cancer, your doctor may suggest other testing, such as:
blood marker tests, chest X-rays, bone scans, and breast MRIs
CT scan, or computerized tomography PET scan for positron emission tomography
How male breast cancer is treated
Depending on the specifics of your diagnosis, there are many therapy options for male breast cancer, including:
Surgery and chemotherapy radiation treatment targeted treatment hormonal treatment
immunotherapy
If you are a guy who has breast cancer, you and your doctors will work together to come up with a treatment plan that takes into account the kind of cancer you have and other things. Men who have a family history of breast, ovarian, pancreatic, or prostate cancer, or who have a family member who was discovered to have an inherited gene mutation that makes cancer more likely, should also think about obtaining genetic testing.
