Compare and Contrast Paper on Breast Cancer versus Cervical Cancer

Introduction

Cancer is one of the leading killer diseases in the world. It ranks third in the causes of death behind malaria and AIDS. Treating cancer is a very expensive exercise that only a few people can afford. There are several types of cancer among humans including breast, cervical, brain, lung, skin and throat cancers. The purpose of this research is to describe what breast and cervical cancer is, the causes of these two types of cancers and how well to prevent, manage and treat them. We shall also focus on the health promotion activities towards cancer awareness, prevention, treatment and post-treatment management.

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Health promotion is the planning of activities and events towards supporting the society to live in a conducive and healthy environment. Most of the activities of health promotion are coordinated by the government in partnership with the private sector that biases its activities to public health. The education combines education, political and environmental policies meant to safeguard the health of the society. While conducting health promotion, there are several critical factors that are considered including Health behavior change, social determinants of health and health literacy. Health behavior change is that civic education meant to change the behavior of the people in the society in order to prevent or minimize diseases in the community. There are several strategies used to change the lifestyle behavior and perception in the society to avoid preventable diseases (Lewis, S., 2015). The strategies may include conducting motivational seminars and interviews touching on health matters, imparting knowledge to the society on benefits of preventing diseases, and offering support educational information on the consequences of healthy living. On the other hand, social determinants play a crucial role in health promotion as there are factors that are beyond the individual that need to be addressed also. Social determinants are socio-economic conditions that play a role in the differences in health status (Eldredge, L. K. B., Markham, C. M., Ruiter, R. A., Kok, G., & Parcel, G. S., 2016). The factors that may play a part in the differences in health status include income levels, wealth of an individual and the influence and power that a given individual holds in the society. Socio-economic factors influence the probability of diseases related to stress, work or lack of it, food, substance addiction and education occurring. Health literacy on the other hand is the ability of and individual in the society to read and properly comprehend the requirements of good health requirements. The individual should thereafter be in a position to make necessary decisions regarding his health and in the case of being diagnosed to be in position to follow the instructions of medication (Forouzanfar, M. H., Foreman, K. J., Delossantos, A. M., Lozano, R., Lopez, A. D., Murray, C. J., & Naghavi, M., 2011).

Breast Cancer

Health promotion, therefore, plays a huge role in the management of breast and cervical cancer. Breast cancer is a disease that occurs when breast tissue cells mutate. The mutated cells then keep reproducing and as they cluster together, they form a tumor that is very cancerous to the body. While there are reported cases of breast cancer among men, the biggest victims of brain cancer are mostly women because men have got a small breast tissue. In fact, women consist of more than 80% of the reported cases of breast cancer. The cause of cancer can either be hereditary or genetic. While cancer is curable when detected early enough, most women only multigene genetic testing after they have been diagnosed with first stage cancer and surgery performed. The genes that are known to cause cancer are genes BRCA1, BRCA2, and PALB2. Any woman who inherits a mutation in any of the three types of genes is more likely to be diagnosed with cancer (Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group., 2011).

Breast cancer undergoes several stages when it develops in the human body. The stages are assigned depending on the results of the biopsy report and also basing on what the tests of blood and image scans showed. Each stage has a meaning on the size of the tumor in the affected body, whether that that cancer is invasive or not, whether the cancer has reached glands that form part of the body's immune system and that cancer has spread to the rest of the body. This staging of cancer best helps in cancer management and treatment. The first stage is stage 0 breast cancer. This is a pre-cancer stage and it is the earliest stage involving breast cancer. Most type of cancer associated with this stage is ductal carcinoma in situ. During this stage, cancer has not spread to lymph nodes and other body parts and therefore is not dangerous. When detected at this stage, it is easily curable and manageable. The second stage is called stage 1 breast cancer. While at this stage cancer has not invaded other parts of the body, this stage of cancer is invasive in the sense that cancer has invaded the tissues of the breast. At this stage, breast cancer is categorized into 1A and 1B depending on whether there are any traces of breast cancer cells in the neighbouring lymph nodes (Stephens, P. J., Tarpey, P. S., Davies, H., Van Loo, P., Greenman, C., Wedge, D. C., ... & Yates, L. R., 2012). At this stage also, cancer is curable if detected early. The third stage of breast cancer is Stage 2 breast cancer. At this stage, cancerous cells are still concentrated in the breast or any sales outside the breast tissues are in the nearby lymph nodes. Like Stage 1, it has two categories being 2A and 2B depending on the size of the tumour. The Fourth Stage of breast cancer is Stage 3. At this stage, cancer is at its advanced level and and it is very difficult to treat. Much as it has not spread to other parts of the body, the cancerous cells have invaded the lymph nodes and therefore it is dangerous. There are three categories at this stage being stage 3A, 3B and 3C. The three stages are categorized depending on the number of the tumors, their sizes and the type of lymph nodes that are affected by the cancerous cells. The final stage of breast cancer is Stage 4 breast cancer. At this stage, cancer has reached distant parts of the body including the brain, lung, bones and skin. This stage is the most dreaded as the chances of healing are very minimal. The type of cancer at this stage is metastatic breast cancer.

There are several ways of cancer treatment including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Surgery is done to a breast cancer patient mostly to remove the cancerous organ from the body of the patient and in the case of breast cancer than the primarily likely organ to be removed from the body is the cancerous breast or both breasts. Chemotherapy, on the other hand, is the use of chemical substances to treat breast cancer. During early days, doctors used genotyping to perform genetic tests to patients to ascertain whether they are suffering from cancer. However, genotyping had its limitations as it could only be used to perform tests on genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. However, an advent in technology has made it possible to perform tests on other genes using the modern machines (Giuliano, A. E., Hunt, K. K., Ballman, K. V., Beitsch, P. D., Whitworth, P. W., Blumencranz, P. W., ... & Morrow, M., 2011).

According to the statistics from National Institute of Health in the United States of America, there has been an increase in the rate of multigene testing from 2013 to 2015. According to those statistics, 74% of women who were tested for cancer in 2013 were only tested on their BRCA genes as compared to 26% who had their multigenes tested. However, by 2015, the figure had changed with 67% of women who went for cancer screening being tested their multigenes as compared to only 33% who only were tested on their BRCA genes.

There are several types of breast cancer. There is Ductal Carcinoma in situ (DSIS). This is a non-invasive type of cancer that originates from the milk duct. It can also be referred to as "stage 0" breast. Normally, this type of cancer does not pose any danger to the individual if it is detected early enough and treated. The second type of cancer is called Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). This is the most common and most dangerous type of breast cancer. Just like DCIS, it originates from the milk duct but eventually breaks the duct wall thus invading the surrounding tissue. It is sometimes referred to as "infiltrating ductal carcinoma. Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is another type of cancer of the breast. This type of cancer normally starts from the milk-producing glands in the body referred to as lobules. However, this type of cancer is not very common and it accounts for less than a tenth of reported cases of cancer. It is also referred to as "infiltrating lobular carcinoma." If not detected early enough, it can spread to other parts of the body. Another type of breast cancer is inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). This is among the few types of cancer that shows symptoms. The symptoms include reddening of the breast and the swelling. The skin may also be hard. This type of cancer tends to occur earlier than the other types of cancer. Another type of cancer is Metaplastic breast cancer that is very rare to occur and it begins in the milk duct where it forms large tumors. It is always very difficult to diagnose this rare type of cancer. Paget disease of the breast is another type of cancer. Just like IBC, this cancer condition also has symptoms that may help a patient to detect it early enough for treatment. It mostly affects the skin of the nipple and areola, resulting in the skin being scaly and red. Most of the time, people with this type of cancer may be suffering from other types of cancer (Wolff, A. C., Hammond, M. E. H., Hicks, D. G., Dowsett, M., McShane, L. M., Allison, K. H., ... & Hanna, W., 2013)..

The risk of contracting breast cancer differs from one individual to another. Family history plays a great role in identifying people who are at risk of contracting breast cancer. A woman who has relatives who have been diagnosed with breast cancer has a higher risk of contracting breast cancer as compared to a woman with no relatives suffering from breast cancer. Consequently, a woman with breast cancer has a higher risk of contracting second primary breast cancer also referred to as contralateral breast cancer. The risk of contracting the disease among women whose relatives have breast cancer also differs depending on several factors. When a woman has first degree relatives (father, mother, brothers, and sisters) with breast cancer, it is two times most likely that that woman will contract breast cancer. A woman with a second-degree relative (cousins and uncles) suffering from breast cancer or who have been infected by breast cancer has a higher chance of contracting breast cancer as compared to a woman whose second-degree relatives are not victims of cancer. The age of a relative also matters as women with the age of fifty years and above have a higher chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer as compared to a woman aged fifty years and below.

Menstrual and menopause periods also contribute to the risk involved in contracting breast cancer. Women who experience menstrual periods in the early stages of their teenage years are most likely to contract breast cancer as compared to the women who experienced menstrual periods in the later years. Women who experience late menopause are also more likely to suffer from breast cancer as compared to women who experienced menopause in the early years of their adult life. While it has never been understood why these two cases occur, it has sometimes been attributed to exposure to female hormone estrogen (Independent UK Pane...