Breast Cancer Pathophysiology

People know diseases primarily from their outward effects on health and the body, and by the mortality rates that are associated with those conditions. But few know the details of what is really happening on the inside when diseases are in the process of developing over time. The medical science that looks at these unfolding internal processes is called pathophysiology.

What is Pathophysiology?
The field of pathophysiology is normally described as a combination of two separate specialties – pathology and physiology. Physiology involves the study of the body and its various functions, while pathology is the study of disease and the way it effects the body. Putting these two together, what we are left with is a practice that describes the specific changes that occur in the functions and processes of the body as a result of the presence of disease.

While this description is certainly accurate, it actually leaves out another field of study which is relevant to pathophysiology, and that is history. Ultimately, pathophysiological study looks closely at and describes the history of what happens in the human body when disease agents are present. It may not be the normal custom to think of a medical science practice as involving history, but research into breast cancer is all dedicated to uncovering more details about the historical development of this disease in the human body, in order to develop treatments and prevention strategies that will work better because they can be precisely and appropriately applied based on new-found knowledge about what is really going on in the body of a woman afflicted by breast cancer.

The Development of Breast Cancer
Looking at the larger picture, breast cancer is the end result of an unfolding confluence of various environmental, hereditary, and personal factors. From the perspective of pathophysiology, some of the immediate, internal reasons why breast cancer suddenly appears when and where it does include:

• Lesions and other damage to DNA, frequently caused by genetic mutations
• Failure of the immune system to remove cancerous cells as it has done in the past
• Malfunctioning growth factor action and signaling in the process of breast cell division and growth
• Inherited defects in genes that normally repair DNA damage, including damage which might lead to breast cancer

As can be seen, the pathophysiology of breast cancer starts in normal breast cells, which suddenly become cancerous as a result of a breakdown in the organized way that cells grow, divide, and repair themselves. Something causes a deterioration in a process that had worked efficiently in the past, and cancer is a side effect of this deep cellular dysfunction.