More and more men are getting breast cancer

Men are also at risk from breast cancer

06/29/2013

Not only women but also men have a breast cancer gene. They too are at risk of getting breast cancer. Therefore, doctors advise to take precautionary measures.

A few hundred men a year
With more than 70,000 new cases a year, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, which statically affects every eighth woman. Little is known that even men can get breast cancer. Although there are only a few hundred male patients a year who are diagnosed, but warn doctors: Men with the breast cancer gene BRCA2 are at risk. Of these, up to 20 percent suffer from breast cancer, explained Marion Kiechle, director of the gynecological clinic at the Rechts der Isar in Munich. They also have an increased risk of prostate and colorectal cancer, so they should take part in appropriate screening programs. "One will look at these men also the breast and send them to the regular breast examination." On a cancer diagnosis follows also in men a therapy, a precautionary mastectomy, as sometimes with women, however, is out of the question.

Uncertainty among women
The US actress Angelina Jolie had some time ago the subject of mastectomy in the headlines, as they were due to breast cancer cases in the family as a precaution to remove both breasts. Many women in Germany have since become worried and more and more seek advice from medical professionals. In recent years, requests at many university clinics and breast centers have doubled or even quadrupled in recent years. Pauline Wimberger, director of the Dresdner Brustzentrum, said that in Dresden, the numbers had "increased on average five times, on peak days even ten times." Until this Saturday about 2,500 participants in Munich at the annual meeting of the German society for Senology (DGS) with therapeutic and diagnostic advances. Although genetically prejudiced women are at particularly high risk, doctors still warn against hysteria. Only five to ten percent of all cases are mutated genes responsible. Andreas Schneeweiss from the National Center for Tumor Diseases at the University of Heidelberg and DGS board member said: "The goal must be that women get accurate information, preferably in a center certified by the German Cancer Society and DGS."

Remove breasts and ovaries as a precaution
At the Klinikum Rechts der Isar, 60 percent of the breasts are taken as a precautionary measure by the patients who have been diagnosed with the breast cancer genes. It is still unclear whether since Jolie's revelation the numbers have risen. In addition, 80 percent of those affected will be removed from the ovaries after completing family planning as they are also at increased risk of developing cancer there. For the self-understanding of the women this is a not so deep cut. "You can not see it." But quite different with a mastectomy. However, a reconstruction can already take place when the breast is removed. "The patient does not have to experience the trauma of amputation so much," says Congress President Axel-Mario Feller. However, breasts can not be reconstructed with all functions and feelings. The methods are still so good that women could forget in everyday life that they are amputated. If there is a genetic predisposition, there are also alternatives, such as close precautionary measures, instead of the radical OP decision. (Ad)

Also read:
Breast cancer in men