The Treatment Of Breast Cancer - 1761 Words

Introduction Breast cancer is the third commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia and the most common in women. This report sets out to investiage the main pathologies of breast cancer including its aetiology, demographics in Australia and how it metastasies. It than explores the main 99mTc based radiopharmaceuticals used in bone imaging for the detection of these metastases and quantitively compares them, to determine the superiority of each. Finally the report compares the efficacy of bone scans compared against other diagnostic techniques to determine the superior method to detect bone metastases in breast cancer paitents. Pathology There are many factors that increase ones risk of developing breast cancer. The most common aetiology of†¦show more content†¦It is estimated in Australia that 1 in 16 people will develop breast cancer by the time they turn 85. Breast cancer is the fourth most common form of cancer death in Australia. In 2012 there were 2819 record deaths from breast cancer in Australia and has a standard mortality rate of 11 in 100,000 people diagnosed and 1 in 74 once they have reached 85. Overall in Australia, the incidence of breast cancer is increasing rapidly from 5,368 people diagnosed in 1982 to 14,568 in 2011, with the standardised incidence rate increasing from 44 to 60 in every 100,000 people. While the number of deaths from breast cancer has increased in Australia from 1,435 in 1968 to 2819 in 2012 the overall survival rate has increased from 72% to 90% due to the growing and ageing population accompanied by increasing technologies (Cancer Australia, 2015). Breast cancer metastases are defined when the localised breast cancer spreads to distant sites beyond the breast and axillary lymph nodes. The main sites for breast cancer metastasises include lymph nodes, bone, brain, liver and the lungs (Uematsu, et al 2005). The process of breast cancer metastases is as follows. Firstly, the primary tumour undergoes cell division and growth. This then causes the invasion of the primary tumour into the basement membrane tissue surrounding the cell. The tumour than moves into the bloodstream and/or lymph channels