Breast cancer
is a disease that has affected women for several thousand years. But the disease's origins remain a mystery. Medical scientists agree that because of the increased advocacy breast cancer study has received in the last 30 years, we are closer than ever to making the disease a thing of the past.
History of Breast Cancer
The Edwin Smith Papyrus, the oldest known medical document dating back to 1600 BC, describes an Egyptian physician attempting to cure a lump of the female breast with a tool known as "a fire drill." However, the Egyptian physician stated that there was not much hope for the procedure, and that experience showed the disease to be incurable.
Breast cancer is one of the oldest afflictions recorded to affect mankind. But, not until the 17th century did modern medicine begin to understand the disease and link the tumorous growths to the lymph nodes found within the breast and nearby lymphatic tissue in the armpits. In 1882, surgeon William Stewart Halsted began performing mastectomies as a means of curing breast cancer. But it would not be until the 1970s that popular literature and celebrity involvement started the real quest for understanding and ending this disease.
Historic Facts about Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is a disease that one in 12 women around the world will experience sometime in their life. In the western societies, particularly the United States, this ratio is significantly higher. The highest at-risk age for contracting the disease is between 45 and 55 years old, but the greatest risk group for death from the disease is women over 60.
In the 1970s, the chance of surviving for five years after being diagnosed with breast cancer was approximately 70 percent. With advances in medicine and early detection, the survival rate has risen to over 90 percent.
Every three minutes in the United States a women is diagnosed with breast cancer; every 13 minutes a women will die of breast cancer in the United States.
Before the 1970s, many women would not come forward or seek treatment if they thought they had breast cancer because of a mistaken belief that there were no treatments for cancer.
Before the 1970s, women had almost no consent in the treatment of their disease. If a woman came in with suspicion of breast cancer, a doctor could put send her into surgery, knock her out and completely remove all of the breast tissue from the breast believed to be cancerous without any discussion with the patient. A woman could go in because of concerns and end up having a major procedure the same day.
Medicine still does not fully understand all of the causes of breast cancer.
Breast Cancer Advocacy Movement - 1st Wave
The 1970s marked a significant change in the way the world viewed breast cancer. So remarkable was the change in the way we viewed breast cancer that it is now known as the first wave of the breast cancer advocacy movement. The movement was begun partly as a response to literature that taught women about their bodies in ways that had not been done before (aiding them in making more informed decisions,) and partly because of celebrities making public their their own battles with the disease. First Lady of the United States Betty Ford was noted for her openness with her breast cancer battle. The result of the 1970s was to create the impression that there is no need to be embarrassed about having or try to hide breast cancer.
Breast Cancer Advocacy Movement - 2nd Wave
The second wave of the breast cancer advocacy movement began in the 1990s and was more political in nature. The message of the second movement was that having breast cancer is not okay--we must find a way to prevent it. No longer were people simply fighting to build awareness for the disease, they were instead proclaiming that the only reason breast cancer exists is the lack of effort to eliminate it. The second wave sought to influence law and medicine to seek better treatments and advanced screening and even pre-screening techniques to completely eliminate the disease.
Accomplishments of Breast Cancer Advocacy Movement
Some of the accomplishments of the breast cancer advocacy movement include:
Two-phase surgical procedure for a woman diagnosed with breast cancer. Women no longer are rushed through a painful process with no chance to prepare themselves for life after surgery or rushed through without a chance for a second opinion. Women play a key role in making decisions about their body and their disease.
Mastectomies are less common and replaced as often as possible with the less invasive lumpectomies, which seek to preserve as much of the natural breast tissue as possible.
Most hospitals have created breast cancer centers to centralize the information for patients, and allow them to meet their oncological surgeons, plastic surgeons and oncologists at the same time instead of separately.
Continuing Advancements in Breast Cancer Research
The next step in breast cancer prevention and elimination involves advanced studies in genetics. Understanding better what is occurring at the genetic level inside of cancer cells will help scientists be able to customize their approach to treating, curing and preventing the different types of breast cancers in patients.
Tags: breast cancer, breast cancer, breast cancer, United States, with breast
