Diet UltraSound Diabetes Cancer & Biopsy Germanium Heart Disease Free Radicals IV Chelation Therapy	Vibrant Life Home Web Family Of Three Chelation Formulas MSM Other VL Products The Wednesday Letter Frequently Asked Questions Testimonials	Karl Loren Web Shopping Cart	Separate Search Page or search below
Navigation Help	Oral Chelation Therapy Other	Ingredients Technical	Write To Karl Loren	Table Of Contents

Are all breast cancers alike?

 No, they are not all alike. They arise from different parts of the breast, have different names and behave differently, even if they outwardly appear the same.

How are breast cancers named?

The first determination for naming is whether the breast cancer is "in situ" or "invasive". In situ cancers remain within the boundaries of the kind of cells that formed them. In situ means "in place", staying where it belongs and not spreading. For this reason in situ cancers are sometimes called precancerous, meaning they may develop into invasive cancers at some later time. About 20-40% of in situ cancers will do this if not removed. Currently, about 12% of detected breast cancers are in situ. This percentage is increasing because breast cancers found on mammograms are often in situ. The other breast cancers are all invasive cancers. Invasive cancers have broken out of the boundaries of the group of cells they came from and are invading or growing into the nearby breast tissue.

The second part of the name tells something about that particular kind of cancer. Some breast cancers get their names from the cells of the breast that turned into cancer. If the cancer arises from the cells of the tubes or ducts that normally carry milk to the nipple, it is called "ductal" or from the ducts. Eighty persent of breast cancers are ductal. If a cancer arises from the part of the breast that produces milk, it is called a lobular cancer. "Lobular" refers to lobes, or the milk producing structures. Ten percent of breast cancers are lobular. Another cancer type is inflammatory breast cancer (3%) which causes the breast to look like it has an infection. The names of other uncommon forms describe what the pathologist sees when s/he looks at the cancer under the microscope. For example, tubular breast cancer still forms tube-like structures, medullary breast cancer has the color of the part of the brain called the medulla, mucinous cancers contain mucus-like material, and papillary cancer has finger-like projections.

How does cancer develop?

Normal cells in our bodies have a predetermined life span, They grow, they give rise to new cells and they die. Our bodies continually replace dead cells with new ones. With millions of new cells being made everyday, mistakes can and do happen, causing abnormal cells. Normally cells have ways of checking and identifying problems. Defective or abnormal cells are destroyed. If something goes wrong with this detection system, the abnormal cells are permitted to grow. Cells grow by first increasing in size and then splitting into two. One cell becomes two, two become four and so forth. Normally, new cells are created at the same rate as old cells die. Cancer cells do not maintain this normal balance. They divide at a faster rate than cells die, causing the cancer to grow.

A second problem with most cancers is that, unlike normal cells, they can spread to other parts of the body or "metastasize". Normal cells do not travel to other parts of the body or the body's immune system detects and destroys them before they can grow.

How long does breast cancer exist before being discovered?

Most women are shocked to find out that they have had their breast cancer for years before it was discovered. Cancer growth is measured in doubling times. One doubling time is the amount of time that it takes for the mass of cancer cells to double in size. It takes about 23 doubling times to go from one cancer cell to become a large enough mass to be seen on a mammogram, and about 30 doubling times to become large enough to be felt as a lump, about one billion cells. Doubling times may be as short as 10 days or as long as several years. Four months is an average doubling time. A cancer's doubling time is an indication of how fast it grows. The doubling time is very important in determining the time course of the cancer. For example, a cancer first starts when a woman is 40. It is a fast growing cancer with a doubling time of 2 months. It takes 46 months (2x23), or almost four years, before it is large enough to be detected by a mammogram and 60 months, or five years, before she feels it. She is diagnosed with cancer at age 44 or 45. If, on the other hand, she has a slow growing cancer with a doubling time of two years, she would be 86 before it could be found on a mammogram and 100 before she could feel it. She probably would die of other causes before she ever knew she had cancer. Carefully performed autopsy studies show undetected invasive breast cancer in over 3% of women age 40 and older. Since most breast cancers grow at an intermediate pace, usually the cancer has been present for 8-10 years before being discovered. Metastatic cancer, like the original cancer in the breast, must double in size at least 23 times before it can be found.

Send comments or questions to wolberg@surgery.wisc.edu

Up-dated 6/30/98

SUBSCRIBE:  The Wednesday Letter is a free electronic monthly newsletter written and published by Karl Loren.  You can view more than 50 back issues of this publication by clicking here.  The Wednesday Letter subscription list is maintained on a secure server, no name is ever given or sold to anyone, and it is never used except for this Newsletter.  It is automatically published on the Tuesday night just before the first Wednesday of every month.  You can subscribe to this free monthly electronic letter by entering your eMail address and name below.  You will then automatically receive a request for confirmation, sent to whatever address you have entered.  If you do NOT receive this confirmation request, then you will not be subscribed.  There may have been an error with your address and you should resubmit.  The letter is never sent twice to the same address -- so you do not have to worry about a duplicate subscription.  When you receive this confirmation request you must reply to it, or your subscription will not become active.  No one can subscribe your name, and address, without you being notified, and if you get an unwanted notice of subscription you only need to DO NOTHING and the subscription will NOT be active.

REMOVAL:  You can remove yourself from the subscription list in several different ways.  Click here to read about this entire newsletter system.  Every edition of The Wednesday Letter is delivered to your address with YOUR name and address in view on the letter, with a link that allows you to remove THAT name from the subscription list.  If you try to send this removal message from an address different from the one you used to send in your original confirmation, then you will get a warning notice first, sent to the subscription address, asking you to confirm that you want to be removed from the list -- by replying to THAT request for confirmation, you will then be automatically removed.  Thus, no one else can unsubscribe you, from some other computer, without your knowledge.  But, if you send in the unsubscribe notice from the same machine used to receive the Letter, then the removal from the subscription list is automatic.

Personal Message:  When you send a personal message to Karl Loren, you will receive a personal reply as per his instructions.  Karl pledges that every personal message will get a personal answer. When you provide your mail address, we will send you free information including our free catalog and a cassette tape lecture by Karl Loren about heart disease, no charge, by mail, even if outside the US.  You can select particular information you would like to receive, along with the free cassette tape and catalog.