RT Book, Section
A1 Lippman, Marc E.
A2 Longo, Dan L.
SR Print(0)
ID 1128356937
T1 BREAST CANCER
T2 Harrison's Hematology and Oncology, 2e
YR 2013
FD 2013
PB McGraw-Hill Education
PP New York, NY
SN 9780071814904
LK hemonc.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1128356937
RD 2024/04/25
AB Breast  cancer  is  a  malignant  proliferation  of  epithelial  cells  lining  the  ducts  or  lobules  of  the  breast.  In  the  year  2010,  about  180,000  cases  of  invasive  breast  cancer  and  40,000  deaths  were  predicted  to  occur  in  the  United  States.  In  addition,  about  2000  men  would  be  diagnosed  with  breast  cancer.  Epithelial  malignancies  of  the  breast  are  the  most  common  cause  of  cancer  in  women  (excluding  skin  cancer),  accounting  for  about  one-third  of  all  cancer  in  women.  As  a  result  of  improved  treatment  and  earlier  detection,  the  mortality  rate  from  breast  cancer  has  begun  to  decrease  very  substantially  in  the  United  States.  This  chapter  will  not  consider  rare  malignancies  presenting  in  the  breast,  such  as  sarcomas  and  lymphomas,  but  will  focus  on  the  epithelial  cancers.  Human  breast  cancer  is  a  clonal  disease;  a  single  transformed  cell—the  product  of  a  series  of  somatic  (acquired)  or  germ-line  mutations—is  eventually  able  to  express  full  malignant  potential.  Thus,  breast  cancer  may  exist  for  a  long  period  as  either  a  noninvasive  disease  or  an  invasive  but  nonmetastatic  disease.  These  facts  have  significant  clinical  ramifications.