Debunking the Myths of Breast Cancer

The term ‘breast cancer’ alone has the potential to strike terror in the hearts of women. Because of their fear of this disease, tens of millions of women have taken the advice of cancer experts and made appointments for regular screening mammograms to help them possibly detect breast cancer in its earliest stages. The fight against breast cancer has galvanized public interest, perhaps like no other campaign against a public health threat ever has.

But whenever so much attention gets focused on a potential health threat, especially one that generates as much fear and uncertainty as breast cancer does, it is unfortunate but inevitable that a lot of false information and rumor is going to spread among the public. This is especially true in this day and age, when the Internet puts everyone just a mouse click away from everyone else.

Even though this is all understandable, the number of myths connected to breast cancer that are circulating out there is actually quite astonishing. Here, we will attempt to expose and debunk just a few of these myths, which is an important part of any educational process designed to help people learn more about the actual threat posed to the health of women by breast cancer.

Myth: Breast Cancer is caused by Genetics
It is true that some breast cancers are caused by genetic mutations, specifically to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. However, only 5 to 10% of all breast cancers can be traced to malfunctions in these cancer-suppressing genes. The fact that genetic tests have been developed that can detect mutations is important but these tests can only help alert a small percentage of women to the dangers they may face.

Myth: Small-Chested Women Have Lower Incidence of Breast Cancer
While at first glance there might appear to be some common sense working here (more breast tissue/more chance for cancer), in fact breast cancers start in the ducts and lobules of the female milk-producing system. Since this system is not affected by breast size in any way, breast size is irrelevant to breast cancer.

Myth: Only Lumps are a Sign that Breast Cancer is Present
In about 10% of breast cancers, women did not find lumps of any kind before being diagnosed. Inflammatory Breast Cancer, for example, is a dangerous, aggressive kind of cancer that manifests as swelling, redness and changes in skin texture – but without lumps.

Myth: Mammograms Can Prevent or Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer
Mammograms can help with early detection of breast cancer, and overall they are responsible for about a 16% reduction in deaths from the disease. However, they can only diagnose, not prevent and even here, mammograms miss about 20% of the cancers that are present, and do not even detect most cancers until they have been growing for several years.

Myth: Mammograms Cause Breast Cancer
The dosage that a woman receives from a mammogram, using the most up-to-date technology, is equivalent to what a person would receive from natural, background sources over a thre- month period. Now it is true, mammograms in the past delivered a much larger dose of X-ray radiation than is currently the case. However, the technology has been improved significantly since those days.

Myth: Birth Control Pills are a Risk Factor for Breast Cancer
In the mid-1990s, studies were done that appeared to show a slight increase in the incidence of breast cancer among women who took birth control pills for an extended period of time. But later studies did not verify these findings, and birth control pills used today contain much lower levels of female hormones (which can act as a source of food for breast cancer cells) than what was the case in the ‘90s.