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Breast Cancer ; The hidden killer we ignore. Part 2

Breast cancer and men

Hello everyone. Welcome back to our talk on breast cancer😊. I was happy to see the curiosity shown in the last post. Being curious helps us against this disease.

A lot of people were surprised that men too can get breast cancer. Well yes they can.😿

While breast cancer is more common in women for obvious reasons, and it is actually the most common cancer among women in Cameroon and the world at large, men too can get breast cancer.

Did you know that despite this disease being rare in men, 1 in every 833 men are diagnosed with breast cancer ? Did you know that at least 2650 men in just the united states were projected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 ? Even in our country Cameroon, it is rare but yes it exists ! Yes there are men here with breast cancer. I know. The odds don’t look too scary but what are the chances that if you don’t protect yourself and try to reduce the risk factors we discussed in the part one of this post you as a man won’t get it ?

Now, the question is, how does this breast cancer come about and why can it occur in men ?

How it comes about

The most common type of breast cancer in men is ductal carcinoma rather than lobular carcinoma which is common in women. I do not mean to confuse you. So let me explain. The human breast, be it male or female has ducts and lobules. These lobules are the milk producing glands found in the breath tissue and since men have fewer lobules than women, they rarely ever get lobular carcinoma. Now, just for the fact that their breast tissue has ducts already predisposes them to developing breast cancer alongside the other risk factors.

So, whether you are male or female, protect yourself, try to reduce the risk factors for having breast cancer like we discussed in the last post and you shall be on a safe side.

On our next awareness post, we shall be talking on how to check yourself for breast cancer.

Thank you for your kind attention. Have a wonderful evening.🥰