Male breast cancer little known Jacqie Walli, RN, a member of the Wellness Committee, would like campus to know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and she has submitted the article below.

Breast cancer isn’t just a woman’s disease. While women are about 100 times more likely to get breast cancer, less than 1 percent of all breast cancers occur in men. In 2005, when 211,400 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States, 1,690 men were also diagnosed. 

Because breast cancer in men is rare, few cases have been available for study. It’s important to understand the risk factors because men are not routinely screened for this disease and don’t think about the possibility that they’ll get it. As a result, breast cancer tends to be more advanced in men than in women when it is first detected.

Risk Factors
A risk factor is anything that makes it more likely you’ll get a particular disease. But not all risk factors are created equal. Some, such as your age, sex and family history, can’t be changed. Others, including smoking and a poor diet, are personal choices over which you have some control.

Factors that may make you more susceptible to breast cancer include:

• Age. Breast cancer is most commonly diagnosed in men between the ages of 60 and 70.
• Family history. If you have a close relative with breast cancer, you have a greater chance of developing the disease.
• Genetic predisposition. In men, nearly 20 percent of breast cancers are inherited.
• Radiation exposure. If you received radiation treatments to your chest as a child or young adult, you’re more likely to develop breast cancer later in life.
• Klinefeiter’s syndrome. This abnormal chromosome condition may place men at greater risk.
• Exposure to estrogen. Such drugs may slightly increase the risk.
• Liver Disease. The male body’s androgen activity may be reduced and its estrogen activity greater, thus increasing the risk.
• Excess weight. Obesity increases the number of fat cells in the body. Fat cells convert androgens into estrogen, thus increasing the risk.
• Excessive use of alcohol. Drinking heavy amounts of alcohol greatly increases the risk.

Symptoms
The most common sign of breast cancer for men is a lump or thickening in the breast. Often the lump is painless. Other male breast cancer symptoms include:

• Skin dimpling or puckering
• A lump felt in the breast
• Development of a new retraction or indentation of the nipple
• Changes in the nipple or breast skin, such as scaling or redness
• Nipple discharge
• Enlarged lymph nodes under the arm

Tests and Diagnosis
After an abnormality of the breast is found, tests are performed to see if the problem is cancer.  One or all of these tests might be done:

• Clinical breast exam
• Mammogram
• Breast ultrasound (ultrasonography)
• Nipple discharge examination
• Biopsy (incisional and/or excisional)
• Estrogen and progesterone receptor tests
• HER2 testing

Treatments and Drugs

• Surgery (Simple mastectomy, Modified radical mastectomy, or

Sentinel lymph node biopsy)

• Radiation therapy
• Chemotherapy
• Hormone therapy
• Herceptin therapy (attacks and blocks proteins made by breast cancer)
• Biological therapy (stimulates the body’s immune system to fight the cancer
• Maintain a strong support system

Prognosis
The prognosis for male and female breast cancer is the same.  In the past, male breast cancer was often diagnosed at a more advanced stage, which may have led people to believe it had a worse prognosis.  The fact remains that cancer found at any stage can be treated but cancer found at a later stage may be less likely to be cured.