Cancer is a vicious disease which big portions of the medical community is dedicated to fighting off. It has had billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours poured into it globally. Some of our biggest and most influential charities work tirelessly against the disease but what are we achieving?
The most common kind of cancer in women is breast cancer and in the past year or two there have been some fairly interesting advances in the field of treatment and prevention of breast cancer in ladies.
Genetics
It’s long been understood that certain families are more likely to contract a cancer than others and that some are prone to certain kinds of the disease over others. What was lacking from this knowledge until the last few years was the ability to predict just how aggressive the cancer someone was likely to contract would be. Being pre-warned of a high chance of aggressive breast cancer means that the doctors and the patient themselves can take various potent preventative measure to help ensure the disease never rears its ugly head.
Prevention
Many women are pre-disposed to breast cancer either genetically or because they’ve already suffered from the disease before. For those high-risk ladies it’s all about prevention and making sure they don’t get unwell.
In recent years, certain powerful drugs have been shown to lessen the chance of breast cancer in ladies and are now being prescribed to those who are in the at risk groups.
Tumour Cells
Cancers spread when individual cells or small clumps of cells break away from the main tumour and travel through the body via the blood stream. These cells then lodge somewhere else and start to multiply. A new, highly sensitive lab test has been developed to identify these cells in the blood stream, meaning that doctors will be able to see just how effective chemotherapy or other treatments are being.
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