INTRODUCTION: Breast Cancer is a disease in which malignant cells form in the breast tissues. It is the leading cause of death for women between 40 and 55 years of age, the second overall cause of death among women (exceeded only by lung cancer) and is growing worldwide. It is more easily treated and often curable if it is found early.

The first symptom that you may have breast cancer is finding a lump in one of your breasts. Usually the lump will end up being benign which is a huge relief for that means that it is not breast cancer.

Of all the types of breast cancer, the one claiming more lives than not is Inflammatory breast cancer. IBC is a very aggressive cancer, and it gets its name from the symptoms women diagnosed with it show. This can occur in women of any age, and is fortunately, a rare type of cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer can also develop in men, though the chances are extremely thin.

The stage of breast cancer when cancer cells do not remain in the original cancer site and spread out to other parts of the body is called metastatic breast cancer. This is the stage when the cancer is fully advanced. Even if you have been successfully treated for breast cancer, there is a chance that some cancer cells do not die, and later spread out through blood and lymphatic vessels to other body organs. This process is known as metastasis of breast cancer.

According to the majority of available resources breast cancer is defined as "cancer of the breast tissue". This doesn't give someone diagnosed with the disease much to go on. But after conducting additional research the answer becomes much more understandable. Cancer is a malignant growth. It is caused by abnormal and completely uncontrollable division of cells. Normal cells begin to be misshapen and start to grow at an extremely fast pace. What occurs is a mass or either a lump that continues to grow and can actually spread all over the body.

Experts agree that for most breast cancer cases, chemotherapy is not the first treatment of choice. But for those for whom it is appropriate, it can provide effective, long term results.

The treatments for breast cancer vary according the stage, type, location and size of the cancer. The non-surgical treatments are hormone therapy, chemotherapy and radiation. Surgeries for breast include the removal of a tumor, mastectomy (breast removal) and the removal of lymphatic tissue.

Breast cancer is something that can happen when you are so busy with many different things that you don't realize it until it's sometimes too late. Some people will feel no pain at all, which is sad because most breast cancer will have no pain and nothing showing until it is already too late.

There are a lot of women who have breast cancer that are still here because their cancer was found early. This is showing that death by breast cancer is falling due to an advanced method of screening and that the treatments available are much better than they were years ago.

No one really knows what causes breast cancer but it is certain that there are definitely things that are linked to the disease. While having some of these things which are usually known as risks, can increase ones chanced of getting breast cancer, it can also mean that even if you have some or all of these, that you might not necessarily get it. It is not a sure fire way of determining if you will ever get breast cancer, and should not be the only thing used in determining it. It is the same way for people who get into car accidents; there are just too many different factors that play a part so it is very difficult to pinpoint it, if one can do that at all.