Complaints & connections · borters.ch
The commonest cancer in women — and one with very good prospects when found early.
Also known as: breast cancer · mammary carcinoma
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
The most common cancer in women; men can also be affected, though rarely. Signs: a new, usually painless lump, skin dimpling or “orange peel” texture, a retracted or altered nipple, one-sided discharge, persistent redness, or a new difference in size. Assessed by examination, ultrasound and biopsy. Treatment depends strongly on the subtype (hormone receptors, HER2); outcomes have improved markedly. Most lumps are benign — but every new one should be checked.
The treatment plan is not made by one person alone but in a round of surgery, oncology, radiology, pathology and radiotherapy. You may ask what was discussed there and which alternatives came up.
Before a big decision it is planned for in many clinics, and the records belong to you. It costs one to two weeks — acceptable in almost every course, and one asks about that if it is urgent.
It is today part of the treatment and not its opposite: it lessens the exhaustion, keeps muscle and bone and improves how the treatment is tolerated. Begin with guidance, less on bad days, but not nothing at all.
Unintended weight loss worsens how any treatment is tolerated. Restrictive diets do more harm than good here — with loss of appetite, dietary advice helps early, not only once kilos are already gone.
By the clock rather than as needed works better and needs less overall. Fear of dependence is the wrong adviser in this situation — untreated pain costs sleep, appetite and strength.
Psycho-oncological support, social advice for insurance and work, and the question of who takes on what at home. This is no emergency measure but belongs at the start — and the relatives belong in it.
It lasts years and works precisely through that. Side effects such as joint pain, hot flushes and dry membranes are treatable — they are the commonest reason for quietly stopping. Anyone who raises them can usually stay with it.
About one woman in eight develops it in her lifetime; the risk rises markedly with age. Found early, five-year survival is above ninety percent. About one in a hundred patients is a man — so a lump there counts just the same.
Anti-hormone treatment works only in hormone-sensitive tumours and needs five to ten years — its benefit lies in preventing the return, not in anything felt, and that is exactly why it is most often stopped in the second or third year. Antibodies against HER2 work only in HER2-positive tumours. Chemotherapy is today often left out on the basis of gene tests, because it adds nothing in some people. No treatment works in every tumour — the subtype decides.
Usually painless, hard, irregularly bordered and hard to move, often only on one side. The great majority of all lumps felt are benign — all of them get examined.
A dimple that appears when raising the arms, thickened skin with large pores, a redness or warmth of part of the breast.
A nipple newly pulled in, a weeping or scaly eczema on it, or a discharge from a single opening — especially if it is bloody and comes without pressing.
Firm, painless lumps in the armpit or above the collarbone belong to the examination of the breast — sometimes they are noticed first.
No blood value finds a breast cancer — examination, imaging and a tissue sample do that. These values serve the assessment and the follow-up: a rise directs the view to bone or liver.
A raised calcium is among the signs of involvement of the bones and causes tiredness, thirst and constipation. It is treatable.
Before and during chemotherapy the most important follow-up value, because it shows the defences and the formation of blood.
The loss of muscle mass helps decide how well a treatment is tolerated. Enough protein spread across the day, together with movement, is the part one holds oneself.
Low values are common with a longer illness, and correcting them counts for bone and muscle. For high-dose courses against the illness itself there are no studies; they can interfere with treatment.
Belong in the workup of an anaemia that is otherwise too quickly put down to the illness or the treatment. Both are easy to measure and easy to supplement.
Nausea, diarrhoea and fever dry one out quickly, and several treatments strain the kidney. Drinking enough is no side issue here.
The most frequently asked question, and the answer has turned around: in large observational studies of women after breast cancer, soy from food was linked with fewer relapses, not more. That does not apply to high-dose isoflavone capsules — there the data are missing.
On anti-hormone treatment joints often ache, and a low level worsens that. Measured and replaced by finding; on the cancer itself no influence is shown.
The most important pointer on this page: it speeds the liver breakdown of tamoxifen and several chemotherapies — the drug level falls measurably. No plant remedy interferes as far-reachingly with a cancer treatment.
Muscle loss during therapy is one of the strongest influences on tolerability. 1.2–1.5 g of protein per kilogram a day is the frame reckoned with in oncology.
Clearly worthwhile and well supported when deficient — vegan, older adults, certain drugs. No energy boost without a deficiency.
In large cohort studies risk rises from about 10 g alcohol a day — one glass of wine — by a few per cent per daily glass. That is a statement about groups, not about an individual.
After menopause fat tissue makes most of the oestradiol. Weight is therefore more closely linked with risk in this phase than before.
Under chemotherapy taste changes and weight often drops. 1.2–1.5 g protein per kg a day and several small meals is the usual frame; cold food is often tolerated better when taste is altered.
The claim usually rests on the PET scan: weakly radioactive glucose is injected, and the tumour lights up. That shows tumour cells take up sugar faster than the tissue next to them — not that eaten sugar feeds them. You come to a PET scan fasting, and the tumour lights up anyway; the body keeps blood sugar within narrow limits by itself. It cannot be starved out this way. There is an established link nonetheless, but it runs through body fat: in 2016 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed the available studies and found sufficient evidence, for thirteen cancers, that absence of excess weight lowers the risk. That concerns prevention — it is not an answer to where an existing illness came from.
In large cohorts regular movement after diagnosis is linked with a better course. Studied at about 150 minutes a week; even during chemotherapy supervised training shows benefits for fatigue.
Studied for coping with anxiety and sleep problems during treatment, with measurable effects. It does not act on the course of the disease — that belongs said.