Breast Cancer in a 44 Year-Old African American Woman .

Posted: December 23rd, 2022

Breast Cancer in a 44 Year-Old African American Woman Breast cancer, as the name implies, is a malignant growth that occurs usually in one of the mammary glands of a human being. It can affect both women and men, but usually disproportionately affects more women than men.Breast Cancer in a 44 Year-Old African American Woman .

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In recent years, the management of breast cancer has improved because of early detection and treatment that is individualised (Hammer & McPhee, 2014; Huether & McCance, 2017). The patient encountered during Practicum Experience was a 44 year-old African American female who is a mother of one. She presented with a chief complaint of an increasing lump in the right breast, an inverted nipple, and peeling of the area around the nipple. She also had some level of pitting of the breast when it was pressed gently. This patient had no history of any major illness. However, she had a long running history of cancer in her family on her mother’s side.Breast Cancer in a 44 Year-Old African American Woman . Both her mother and grandmother on the mother’s side had breast cancer. Both had to undergo surgery, with her grandmother undergoing a mastectomy and her mother undergoing a mastectomy. Additionally, her mother had to also undergo a prophylactic mastectomy on the unaffected side. Genetics form a very important predisposing factor to breast cancer. The condition expresses itself when the genetic predisposition interacts with favorable environmental conditions. According to statistics, about 5-10% of all breast cancers are genetic in origin (Hammer & McPhee, 2014; Huether & McCance, 2017). In the case of this 44 year-old woman, she had obesity with a body mass index or BMI of 31.5. Obesity is one of the favorable environmental factors that encourage the expression of the cancer genes carried in a person’s genetic code. Drug Therapy, Treatment, and Follow-up Breast cancer has no definitive treatment, unless early detection enables surgery to remove all the potentially cancerous tissue before it spreads.Breast Cancer in a 44 Year-Old African American Woman . Drug therapy centres on pain relief, with opioid analgesics preferred due to the severe pain that may accompany breast cancer (Katzung, 2018). Generally, however, the treatment of breast cancer will depend on the stage of the disease. Three treatment strategies currently exist, apart pain management. These are chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. Any two or all three can be combined to treat breast cancer, depending on the stage of course. Surgery may involve removal of the cancerous tissue and lymph nodes if the cancer has not yet spread. This is lumpectomy. It may however also involve the removal of the whole breast, in which case it is mastectomy (Huether & McCance, 2017;Hammer & McPhee, 2014). Follow up care for breast cancer interventions basically involves ascertaining that the growth has stopped, and that all the cancerous tissue was removed in the case of surgery. This requires successive mammography scans for sometime after intervention.Breast Cancer in a 44 Year-Old African American Woman . There may also be need for follow-up radiotherapy just to be certain there would be no recurrence. Education strategies for teaching patients at risk of breast cancer include teaching them to recognise early signs like a xhange in appearance of the breast and peeling off of the area around the nipple. Breast self examination involves having the woman sit in front of a mirror and gently palpate the breasts one at a time. She has to divide each breast in four quadrants and then proceed to palpate each quadrant in turn.Breast Cancer in a 44 Year-Old African American Woman .