written by Eric Rosli
Society is stereotyping breast cancer as a norm for women since it is more likely be linked as one of the disease that be diagnosed in women compare to men. In addition, breast cancer also been recognized as one of the dangerous threats to women’s health. Therefore, if we can see, there are many events or awareness campaigns that focusing on breast cancer in women rather that men, which makes many people to have this stereotype which lead them to ignore the chances of men been diagnosed with breast cancer not seriously even though there are less than 1% of all breast cancer are develop in men.
However, there are cases of breast cancer that involve men even though the number of cases is rare. Therefore, the need of providing them with information about breast cancer is high, so that they will have a full exposure about the disease from the symptoms until how to treat it. Breast cancer in men usually been detected as a lump that occurs underneath the nipple and areola. And due to the lack of awareness among them, it makes men are likely to take the lump not seriously and ignore the possibility for the lump to become a breast cancer which will cause a delay in getting treatment.
Therefore, when they started to notice a lump or anything that unusual about their breast, they should get professional advice about it because an early detection of breast cancer can increase the options of treatment and eventually increase the chances of being a survival. Besides the lack of awareness, the feeling of embarrassment to being label as one of the breast cancer patient which primarily been diagnose in women, also makes men tend to ignore the hard lump that occurs.
Therefore, there is an urge of more campaign been conduct that are focusing on giving out information and awareness towards the breast cancer in men so that men will feel more comfortable in doing the diagnosis and treatments procedure for breast cancer as breast cancer are not only been detect in women but also men.
Reference
Breast Cancer Network Australia (2017). Breast cancer in men. Retrieved April 06, 2017 from https://www.bcna.org.au/understanding-breast-cancer/breast-cancer-in-men/
Kinninment, M. & Gaffney, A. (2017). Shining light on male breast cancer. Retrieved April 04, 2017 from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-15/male-breast-cancer-survivor-calls-for-more-awareness/8356578
National Breast Cancer Foundation (2017). Male breast cancer. Retrieved April 4, 2017 from http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/male-breast-cancer
The American Cancer Society (2017). What is breast cancer in men? Retrieved April 09, 2017 from https://www.cancer.org/cancer/breast-cancer-in-men/about/what-is-breast-cancer-in-men.html