Breast cancer awareness month

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Listening to the various reports on Breast Cancer Awareness Month on TV you might be forgiven for thinking this was a purely female issue.

Its not.

With 1 in 100 cases of breast cancer diagnosed being in males, and with much increased chance of males ignoring the early signs, it is a health risk not to be ignored or trivialised.

And especially of concern, I would suggest, to males with gynecomastia. Statistics like ''Forty percent of men with gynecomastia develop breast cancer" certainly hold your attention.

Further reading:

http://imaginis.com/breasthealth/bcmen.asp

http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/breastcancer.html

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/malebreast/patient

http://www.phoenix5.org/Basics/treatsides/gyneBCaMen.html

If I were someone faced with an NHS or private medical insurance refusing to treat gyne because it isn't considered a medical condition, I'd be giving this some serious consideration.

[Worrier]

. Gynecomastia in itself cannot cause breast cancer or make you more likely to get it. Their is no direct link.
      Gynecomastia can be a symptom of an underlying hormone problem which can make males more likely to get breast cancer.
If you got gyne in puberty but you have normal hormone levels now or your gyne was due to drug  ,alcohol or steriod use but has since been corrected you are no more at risk medically than the average man. So I'm affraid I doubt that argument will work on the NHS or Bupa.
I am a hypochrondriac and used that argument with my doctor ,did not get anywhere.It's a pity really as if there was a diredt link I think more men could get surgery easier. :-/

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That may be so (but given that breast cancer only develops in breast tissue I fail to see how there is NOT a direct link), however, women have successfully had mastectomy operations on the NHS on the grounds that they are less likely to develop breast cancer if they have no breast tissue. These would be women at high risk due to family history, but nevertheless there is a precedent.

If a man requested surgery due to concern over the development of breast cancer, and this was denied, and that man then went on to develop breast cancer ... would there be a case of negligence to answer?

I can't see how you could be at no more risk than the average man. That just doesn't make sense. I very much doubt that sufficient data has been collated to determine if there is an increased risk or not.

Common sense indicates that with increased breast tissue there must be increased risk of cancer - there is more opportunity for cancer to develop. Were this not the case the use of mastectomy as a cure would be ineffective - obviously not so.

On the other hand, it is claimed that breast size has no direct relationship to development of breast cancer. From a purely logical point of view, unless I am missing some vital fact, I don't see how this can be true.

Here's my logic.

Breast cancer is a malignant tumor that develops from cells in the breast and is caused by uncontrolled growth of cells in the breast−when cells in the breast lose their normal ability to control cell growth

. Larger breasts have more cells, therefore statistically the must have more risk of cells  becoming cancerous.

Do large breasts simply have bigger cells - ie all breasts have the same number of cells, but overall breast size is determined by the size of the breast cells themselves? Is this the vital fact I am missing?

This link suggests not:
http://www.breastcancer.realage.com/content.aspx/topic/13  ... and in fact supports my argument that more galndular tissue means more risk of cancer development ...

By the time the two women are in their fifties, the risk of getting breast cancer could be as much as 70% higher for the larger-breasted lean woman than for the smaller-breasted lean woman

So there appears to be conflicting medical advice. Not too surprising as the medical profession doesn't know as much as they would like you to think they do; often medical fact is no more than accepted medical opinion which has not yet been proved incorrect.

I suspect that where it is quoted that there is no direct link between size and risk of cancer, what is really meant is

Is breast size related to the risk of breast cancer?
The size of the breast is not itself a major risk factor for breast cancer. However, the density of the breast is a risk factor.

as quoted on the Realage Breast Cancer Screening Center link above. I.e. the message is dumbed down, as is often the case, to a soundbite which is in fact misleading. This size may not of itself be a MAJOR risk factor, but for two breasts of equal size the one more densely packed with breast tissue rather than fat is at greater risk. Or to put that another way, if a small breast and a large breast have equal density then the large breast carries a greater risk.

Which kind of confirms that men with gyne ARE at more risk of developing cancer than those without ... providied we are talking about glandular gyne and not pseudo gyne.

I am more than happy to be proved wrong obviously, but I do think this is a topic worthy of serious debate.  

[Worrier]

Call me a cynic and untrusting of the medical profession, but can you imagine the fallout if such a link was proved?

Their would be a deluge of med insurance claims based on 'medical need' which these firms would feel obligated to cover. As for the NHS they could not turn round and say it is cosmetic and refuse to do it.

What you say makes sense ie the more breast tissue you have the more at risk you are . But doctors would probably say men and women are different physiologically and refute that.I don't know how as Iam not a doctor
I had the same logic as you have mentioned but my GP just said 'no way' even though there is a history of breast cancer(female) in my family. And a Breast surgeon said the same thing when I had the lump looked at.
Opinion may change later on you never know.

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Opinion may change later on you never know.

Yes, right after the first successfull legal challenge! See the floodgates opening for cancer drugs this week? It just takes someone to challenge the "accepted medical opinion" and resuse to be fobbed off.