A study found that male breast cancer is on the rise, with a 25% increase over the 25 years from 1973 to 1988. But it’s still rare.
Researchers at the University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center report on the survey of the disease covering more than 2,500 cases. Sometimes the breasts can become quite large. This can be caused by medications, heavy alcohol use, weight gain, or marijuana use.
The researchers say it`s important that men should be more aware of possibility that they may get
breast cancer, the study shows the incidence of the disease is up from 0.86 to 1.08 cases per 100,000 men over the last 25 years. Also they compared with 380,000 cases of female patients. Male patients tended to be somewhat older than female patients when diagnosed with the disease. They were also more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage.
This is somewhat ironic, for it is easier to detect a breast tumor in a man.
But men may think that such tumors arise from a common benign condition. The medical term called gynecomastia (enlargement of both breast usually not called cancer)
The most common breast tumor among males is invasive ductal carcinoma, which accounts for 93.4 per cent of cases. Men are also more likely to have estrogen-positive tumors, which mean they could benefit from tamoxifen treatment.
The survival rates for male and female breast cancers are similar, although the tumors may differ somewhat in their biology
.