Breast Cancer Cancer is the leading cause of dea

Cancer is the leading cause of death in the united Stats today, and the leading type of cancer is breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed type of cancer, and this year alone, more than 15,000 women will be diagnosed with the disease, while some 40,000 will die of it. Recent surveys indicate that while many types of cancer are on the wane, breast cancer is on the rise. Scientists are trying to understand the etiology of the disease and to isolate any element which may cause it. Most recently, scientists have isolated a gene on chromosome 17, a gene called BRCA 1. Scientists think this gene may be the cause of breast cancer, and they hope that further research will prove whether or not this is so.

Among the factors known to affect cancer rates are heredity, viruses, ionizing radiation, chemicals, and alterations in the immune system. Studies now suggest that these elements may interact in a multifactorial, sequential process leading to malignancy. Yet, cancer is essentially a genetic process, and inherited gene abnormalities or those induced by a virus or damage from an outside source are then subject to a series of sequential mutations in time leading to a single cell that is malignant and that proliferates as a clone. One of the external factors may be diet, which could account for 40 percent of cancers, though the causative relationship remains unclear. Research may clarify how these external factors interact with the genetic ca

Related Essays

Nutrition: Breast Cancer Among women, breast ca Among women, breast cancer is a major health problem. In fact, it was once the leading cause of female cancer mortality. There are .... (1562 6 )

Breast Cancer & Estrogen & Oncogenes In recent years, major .... For example, in the United States, cancer is the second leading cause of death .... In fact, for many years, breast cancer was the most common cause of death due to .... (9254 37 )

Breast Cancer Treatment biochemical studies aimed at determinin .... Approaches in Breast Cancer Treatment Breast cancer is the most common cancer found in women and in Western societies it is the leading cause of early death in .... (4363 17 )

Lung Cancer .... With the rising number of women who smoke, lung cancer surpassed breast cancer in 1987 as the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. .... (1252 5 )

Liver Cancer .... Liver diseases are the seventh leading disease-related cause of .... found to lead to increased cancer risk is .... to a higher incidence of breast cancer (Van Itallie .... (1176 5 )

t cancers. Such malignancies as sporadic breast and ovarian cancers that strike women without a family history of such tumors are also caused in part by BRCA 1, and current research suggests that the gene may be involved in a significant fraction of the 182,000 breast cancers and 26,000 ovarian cancers discovered each year. Scientists now agree that a healthy BRCA 1 gene acts as a tumor suppressor by carrying the blueprint for the production of a protein that slows cell growth. When this is absent, breast or ovarian cells can begin to proliferate wildly. Women carrying the mutant BRCA 1 gene face have an 85 percent change of developing breast or ovarian cancer at some point in their lives, and recent research in Germany seems to indicate that the early onset of menstruation and the postponement of first childbirth can cause the disease to start earlier in a woman's life. Up to 31 mutations have been described, with 22 identified as distinct. Most result in the premature reduction in the production of the gene product. A small number of BRCA 1 mutations switch one amino acid for another. These tend not to say much about the function of the protein, with two prominent exceptions. The only recognizable domain in the BRCA

Category: Medical - B