Breast cancer: some basics
Based on comments, I'd say readers of this blog are pretty sophisticated; so at the risk of boring some, and before flying off in various directions on the topic, let me establish a few basic breast cancer bits. First, the most basic of all: what is cancer? Most all of the tissues in your body have a cycle of life and death, as cells die off and are replaced by new ones. This is especially true of surface cells, like skin and those that form inner linings: glands, guts, various tubes. Different cells have particular rates of division and reproduction, timed exactly to replace those that die off: dandruff is proof of the process, if you need any. For a few reasons, a cell may mutate in such a way that it loses the control of the replication rate, dividing more rapidly than needed to replace its cousins. The cells formed in that division process have the same misinformation, and the process continues, producing a cluster of cells: a tumor. If that tumor grows slowly and stays wher