Question: My mother has just been diagnosed as suffering from breast cancer. Please tell me, how is breast cancer treated, and is it successful?
Once a breast lump is detected, a diagnosis can often be made before operation by methods such as x-rays of the breast (mammography) and needle biopsy. This is important as it allows the surgeon to discuss the diagnosis and method of treatment with the patient.
Radical mastectomy (removal of the breast and underlying muscles), and its accompanying disfigurement, is an operation of the past. It has been replaced by simple mastectomy in which only the breast is removed, leaving a cosmetically acceptable scar and scope for reconstruction of the breast by plastic surgery at a later date. Often the lymph glands under the arm will be removed at the same time, because this is the area that cancel spreads to first. Alternatively, or combined with this, a course of radiotherapy or chemotherapy (drugs) may be recommended.
In some women, equally good results in controlling the cancer can be obtained by removal of the lump alone, coupled with radiotherapy to the breast and excision of the under-arm glands. A gradually increasing proportion of women are being treated this way. Lumpectomy is only suitable for early cancers: more advanced cancers still require mastectomy. Thus delay in presentation can have a dramatic cosmetic effect as well as a prognostic one, and a return to a normal lifestyle may be only a couple of weeks away with the simpler procedure.
Two-thirds of all breast cancers may be cured. With early presentation an diagnosis, this can rise to 90%+.

Question: I am 17 years old with very small breasts. The other night on the TV news there was a female model who used to be a man. This person had breasts of normal size. Why is it that an ex-male can have larger breasts than a naturally born woman?
Men who wish to change their sex do so by taking large doses of female hormones (oestrogen). Men possess breast tissue, but usually in a residual form. If this is stimulated by female hormones, the breast tissue will start enlarging in the same way as that of a teenage girl. Some teenage boys develop small breasts for a few months due to a temporary imbalance in their hormone levels.
When you start your periods and start developing breasts, it is because your ovaries start producing female hormones. Some women have breast tissue that is larger in quantity, and/or more sensitive to these hormones than other women, and they develop large breasts. The reverse can also occur. The tendency to large or small breasts is hereditary, so that if your mother and grandmother had small breasts, your chance of doing the same is quite high.
Large breasts can also be caused by obesity. From my male doctor perspective, I feel that women with very large breasts are at a much greater disadvantage than those with small breasts, in both appearance and personal comfort. It would be possible to increase your breast size by taking large doses of female hormone, but the side effects on the other parts of your body that respond to this hormone (the womb, ovaries and vagina) would be significant, and you would be strongly advised not to take this course.
A moderate increase in breast size can often be achieved by taking the oral contraceptive pill. During and after a ptegnancy, your breast size increases significantly, and some of this increase may persist after feeding ceases. Small-breasted women can breast feed just as easily as those with large breasts.
In the long run, if you feel that your small breasts are a significant cosmetic problem, it is possible to have plastic surgery to increase their size. This is a far better option than taking hormones that may have harmful complications. Any such surgery should be delayed until you are in your early twenties, as some breast growth is possible in your late teens.