Other Breast Cancers

There are many different types of breast cancer, with different rates of spread and stages, and genetic makeup.The various types of breast cancer start in different sections of the breast, including the ducts, lobules or the tissue in between.

Breast cancer types can be simplified as being non-invasive, invasive, recurrent, and metastatic.

Commonly, health care professionals consider the most common breast cancer types as being ductal breast cancer and lobular breast cancer, including cancers such as ductal carcinoma in situ, lobular carcinoma in situ, invasive ductal carcinoma, and invasive lobular carcinoma.

Other breast cancer types include inflammatory breast cancer, recurrent and metastatic breast cancer, male breast cancer, and Paget’s disease of the nipple. There are also less common types of invasive ductal carcinoma including medullary carcinoma, tubular carcinoma, and mucinous carcinoma.

The symptoms of breast carcinoma you can feel or see include:

• A lump or swelling in the breast and / or armpit.
• Pain in the nipple, and / or discharge.
• A retracted or inverted nipple, or eczema-like skin on the nipple
• Unusual breast pain, or persistent tenderness

The treatments for ductal and lobular carcinoma, and carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma, are similar, and include a mastectomy or lumpectomy with chemotherapy or radiation therapy and long term drug use.

The treatment for recurrent breast cancer is a combination of hormone therapy, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and a full mastectomy if lumpectomy was performed before. Breast surgery is only used in special cases when metastatic breast cancer is diagnosed, and treatments for this type of cancer include chemotherapy, radiation therapy and hormone therapy.
Inflammatory breast cancer follows a similar pattern of treatment, with breast surgery being more common, and male breast cancer is treated the same as breast cancer in women.