Male breast cancer - Symptoms and causes

Male breast cancer is uncommon cancer that forms in the breast tissue of men.

Male breast cancer - Symptoms and causes

 Though breast cancer is most commonly thought of as a disease that affects women, breast cancer doesn't occur in men.

Male breast cancer is the most common in senior men, though it can occur at any age.

Men diagnosed with men breast cancer at an early stage have a fantastic chance for a cure. 

Other treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation treatment, may be recommended based on your particular situation.

Which Men Are More Likely to Get Breast Cancer?

It is rare for a man under age 35 to acquire breast cancer. A man's likelihood of getting breast cancer goes up with age. Most breast cancer occurs to men between ages 60 and 70.

Other items that increase the odds for male breast cancer include:

• Breast cancer at a close female relative
• History of radiation vulnerability of the torso
• Enlargement of breasts (known as gynecomastia) from drug or hormone treatments, or even some infections and poisons
• Taking estrogen
• A rare genetic illness called Klinefelter's syndrome
• Severe liver disease, called cirrhosis
• Diseases of their testicles like mumps orchitis, a testicular injury, or an undescended testicle

Men Breast Cancer Symptoms

Signs and symptoms of men  breast cancer may include

• Changes to your nipple, such as redness or scaling, or even a nipple that begins to turn inward

• Discharge from the nipple

Men Breast Cancer  Causes

Doctors understand that male breast cancer happens when some breast cells divide faster than healthy cells perform. The accumulating cells form a tumor that may spread (metastasize) to nearby tissue, to the lymph nodes or other parts of the human body.

Where breast cancer starts in Men

Everybody is born with a little bit of breast tissue. Breast tissue consists of milk-producing glands (lobules), ducts that carry milk to the nipples, as well as fat.

During puberty, girls begin developing more breast tissues, and men do not. But because men are born with a small quantity of breast tissue, they could develop breast cancer

Kinds of breast cancer diagnosed in men include:

• Cancer that begins in the milk ducts (ductal carcinoma).

• Cancer that starts in the milk-producing glands (lobular carcinoma). This kind is rare in men because they have few lobules in their breast tissue.

• Additional Kinds of cancer. Other, rarer types of breast cancer that can occur in men include Paget's disease of the breast and breast cancer.

Breast Cancer in Men

Inherited genes which raise breast cancer risk

Some guys inherit abnormal (mutated) genes in their parents that increase the risk of breast cancer. Mutations in one of many genes, notably a gene known as BRCA2, place you at higher risk of developing breast and prostate cancers.

If you've got a strong family history of cancer, discuss this with your health care provider. Your physician may recommend that you meet with a genetic counselor to consider genetic testing to see if you carry genes which increase your risk of cancer.

 Breast Cancer  Risk factors

Factors that increase the risk of male breast cancer include:

• Older age. The chance of breast cancer increases as you get older.Male breast cancer is most commonly diagnosed in men in their 60s.

• Exposure to estrogen. If you choose estrogen-related drugs, such as the ones used for hormone treatment for prostate cancer, your risk of breast cancer has been increased.

If you've got a close family member with breast cancer, you have a better prospect of developing the disease.

• Klinefelter's syndrome. This genetic syndrome happens when boys are born with more than one copy of the X chromosome. Klinefelter's syndrome causes abnormal development of the testicles. Because of this, men with this syndrome create lower amounts of certain male hormones (androgens) and more female hormones (estrogens).

• Liver disease. Certain conditions, such as cirrhosis of the liver, can reduce male hormones and boost female hormones, raising your chance of prostate cancer.

• Obesity. Obesity is associated with high amounts of estrogen in the body, which raises the risk of male breast cancer.

• Testicle disorder or surgery. Getting irritable testicles (orchitis) or surgery to remove a testicle (orchiectomy) may raise your risk of male breast cancer.

Diagnosis and Treatment 

The very same methods which are utilized to diagnose breast cancer in women are employed in guys: physical tests, mammography, and biopsies(analyzing small samples of tissue under a microscope).

Likewise, the same treatments which are used in treating breast cancer in women -- surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, biological therapy, and hormone treatment -- can also be utilized to treat breast cancer in males. 

The one big difference is that men who have breast cancer respond much better to hormone treatment than girls do. 

Approximately 90 percent of male breast cancers have hormone receptors, meaning that hormone therapy can work in many men to treat cancer.

SOURCE:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/male-breast-cancer/symptoms-causes/syc-20374740