HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

All peo­ple, whether male or fe­male, are born with some breast cells and tis­sue. Even though males do not de­vel­op milk-pro­duc­ing breasts, a man’s breast cells and tis­sue can still de­vel­op can­cer. Though, male breast can­cer is very rare, it is just as se­ri­ous as that which women ex­pe­ri­ence.

The Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety es­ti­mates that around 2,500 new cas­es of breast can­cer in men are re­port­ed every year, claim­ing the lives of 460 men.

Breast can­cer in men is usu­al­ly de­tect­ed as a hard lump un­der­neath the nip­ple and are­o­la. Men car­ry a high­er mor­tal­i­ty than women do, pri­mar­i­ly be­cause aware­ness among men is less and they are less like­ly to as­sume a lump is breast can­cer. This as­sump­tion is the main rea­son for the de­lay in seek­ing treat­ment.

What Are the Symp­toms?

The most com­mon symp­toms of breast can­cer in men are (sim­i­lar to women)

with the ma­jor­i­ty of men be­ing di­ag­nosed over the age of 50:

A lump or swelling in the breast.

Red­ness or flaky skin in the breast.

Ir­ri­ta­tion or dim­pling of breast skin.

Nip­ple dis­charge.

Pulling in of the nip­ple or pain in the nip­ple area.

What Are the Risk Fac­tors?

Sev­er­al fac­tors can in­crease a man’s chance of get­ting breast can­cer. Hav­ing risk fac­tors does not mean you will get breast can­cer.

Get­ting old­er. The risk for breast can­cer in­creas­es with age. Most breast can­cers are found af­ter age 50.

Over­weight and obe­si­ty. Old­er men who are over­weight or have obe­si­ty have a high­er risk of get­ting breast can­cer than men at a nor­mal weight.

Liv­er dis­ease. Cir­rho­sis (scar­ring) of the liv­er can low­er an­dro­gen lev­els and raise oe­stro­gen lev­els in men, in­creas­ing the risk of breast can­cer.

Ge­net­ic mu­ta­tions. In­her­it­ed changes (mu­ta­tions) in cer­tain genes, such as BR­CA1 and BR­CA2, in­crease breast can­cer risk. In men, mu­ta­tions in the BR­CA1 and BR­CA2 genes can al­so in­crease the risk of high-grade prostate can­cer, and pan­cre­at­ic can­cer.

Fam­i­ly his­to­ry of breast can­cer. A man’s risk for breast can­cer is high­er if a close fam­i­ly mem­ber had breast can­cer.

Con­di­tions that af­fect the tes­ti­cles. In­jury to, swelling in, or surgery to re­move the tes­ti­cles can in­crease breast can­cer risk.

Ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py treat­ment. Men who had ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py to the chest have a high­er risk of get­ting breast can­cer.

Hor­mone ther­a­py treat­ment. Drugs con­tain­ing oe­stro­gen (a hor­mone that helps de­vel­op and main­tain fe­male sex char­ac­ter­is­tics), which were used to treat prostate can­cer in the past, in­crease men’s breast can­cer risk.

Kline­fel­ter syn­drome. This is a rare ge­net­ic con­di­tion in which a male has an ex­tra X chro­mo­some. This can lead to the body mak­ing high­er lev­els of oe­stro­gen and low­er lev­els of an­dro­gens (hor­mones that help de­vel­op and main­tain male sex char­ac­ter­is­tics).

Let’s Check it out, in­stead of Tough­ing it Out!

For all the phys­i­cal prob­lems posed by breast can­cer in men, it may be a psy­cho­log­i­cal trait that makes the con­di­tion es­pe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous. The ten­den­cy of some males to want to “tough it out,” or flat-out ig­nore, signs of an un­der­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tion can prove dead­ly in the case of can­cer.

In one study by Har­vard Health, re­searchers found that men wait­ed about 19 months to seek med­ical care up­on dis­cov­er­ing ini­tial symp­toms. We can safe­ly as­sume that many of the men who put off med­ical treat­ment for such a long pe­ri­od don’t think of their con­di­tion as par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous. More­over, we may as­sume that the very strong cul­tur­al un­der­tone of breast can­cer as a “women’s is­sue” con­tributes to this prob­lem.

The bot­tom line: breast can­cer is a dan­ger­ous dis­ease and one that can spread quick­ly with­out in­ter­ven­tion. No mat­ter your gen­der, if you no­tice any of the above-men­tioned symp­toms, seek med­ical at­ten­tion right away. If you’re one of those “No big deal” guys, swal­low your pride and sched­ule an ap­point­ment with your Doc­tor.