What is Breast Cancer?

Healthy Women gives the following definition for breast cancer -
A disease in which malignant (cancerous) cells are found in breast tissue.

Sounds so simple doesn't it. Lets dive in a little deeper. Within a woman's breast there are "lobules (milk-producing glands), ducts (tiny tubes that carry the milk from the lobules to the nipple), and stroma (fatty tissue and connective tissue surrounding the ducts and lobules, blood vessels, and lymphatic vessels)." (American Cancer Society) We first need to know what makes up the breast in order to understand the different types of breast cancer. Most begin in the lining of the ducts, while fewer start in the lining of the lobules.

There are several types of breast cancer, and honestly I would not recommend starting out with just a list of technical terms. If we will first take the time to understand the words typically used when describing a cancer diagnosis it makes it much easier and less intimidating than just looking at the medical descriptions. So, I have decided to take a slightly different more simplistic approach. Lets tackle some vocabulary.

Carcinoma - cancer that begins in the lining layer of organs such as the breast. These are cancers that begin in the outer cells of the lobules or ducts. By looking at the picture above we can see where these would be. Breast cancers nearly all fall into this category.

Adenocarcinoma is a type of carcinoma that starts in the gladular tissue. Glandular tissue includes those that make and secrete substances, in this case breast milk. Once again we are looking at the ducts and lobules.

Carcinoma in situ - this simply means cancer in its earliest stages. The cancer is limited to the original cell that it started in, and has not invaded any of the surrounding tissue.

Invasive (infiltrating) carcinoma - this is the opposite of the carcinoma in situ meaning that the cancer has spread to surrounding tissue outside of its original cell.

Sarcoma - these are cancers starting in connective tissue. Connective tissue being muscle, fat, or blood vessels. These are rare when talking about breast cancer.

By first looking at the vocabulary it is much easier to understand the types of cancer. Typically the type of cancer will use a combination of the above to comprise a label. An example of this would be Ductal carcinoma in situ. By breaking this down we know that the cancer is located in the ductal region and is in its early stages. Wouldn't it be nice if our doctors used the broken down version. The second description seems a great deal less intimidating.

Types of cancer:
Ductal carcinoma in situ
Lobular carcinoma in situ
Invasive ductal carcinoma
Ivasive lobular carcinoma

These are the most common types of cancer. There are several less common types of cancers, and I will try and devote another day to describing those when I have better educated myself on them.

The world of cancer is intimidating and scary. Try not to be discouraged. If at anytime you don't understand what you are being told, then ask for a better or simpler description. You do not have to be satisfied with something you do not understand. If you are still unsure take notes and do some research on your own. There are so many resources out there that will literally dumb it down for you. I am working on a list of resources that I have found extremely helpful, and I am planning on posting it soon!

Until next time, keep smiling and don't get discouraged!