Breast Cancer

choi

Lindsey Fitzharris, A Medical Historian Confronts Breasts Cancer; After her diagnosis, a writer reflects on how the pain and suffering of generations of women helped lead to today's medical advances. Wall Street Journal, Dec 3, 2022, at page C4.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-m ... -cancer-11669917623
https://mediatecla.com/a-medical ... ancer-media-techla/

Excerpt in the window of print: Nowadays, there's no longer a 'one size fits all' approach to breast cancer.

Note:
(a)
(i) Lindsey Fitzharris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_Fitzharris
(1982- ; "American; holds a PhD in the History of Science, Medicine & Technology, received from the University of Oxford in 2009")
(ii)
(A) @DrLindseyFitz. Twitter, Apr 20, 2019.
https://twitter.com/drlindseyfit ... 08849489920?lang=en
("Twelve hours after selling The Butchering Art [which was published in 2017; always selling a book right predates publication] (and eight months after the ordeal began), I was granted indefinitely leave to remain in the UK")
(B) leave
https://www.etymonline.com/word/leave

The English leave as a verb and as a noun (used almost exclusively in law, such as "seek leave" from court. court "grant leave"/ American law does not use leave as a verb to mean "permit"). A lawyer or litigant does not say permission, which sounds lowbrow.


(b) "As women do not get routine mammograms until the age of 50 in the UK, it is unlikely that the tumor would have been noticed for some time if I had not insisted on a referral [by, say, a primary care physician (PCP) to a radiologist or an oncologist].
(i) Breast Cancer Treatment (Adult) (PDQ®)–Patient Version. National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute of Health (NIH), undated.
https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-treatment-pdq
(illustrations for mammography and breast MRI; Types of surgery:
lumpectomy (also known as partial mastectomy; "Part of the chest wall lining [meaning muscle(s)] may also be removed if the cancer is near it"),
total (or simple) mastectomy ("Some of the lymph nodes under the arm may be removed and checked for cancer. This may be done at the same time as the breast surgery or after. This is done through a separate incision"),
modified radical mastectomy)
(A) One may click, underneath the title, "Go to Health Professional Version," but the new page contains no illustration.
(B) There is no radical mastectomy in this Web page, or the one for professionals.
(C) "today a radical mastectomy is rarely performed and is generally only recommended when the breast cancer has spread to the chest muscles." from the Web.
(ii) PDQ. NCI, undated
https://www.cancer.gov/publicati ... ancer-terms/def/pdq
("PDQ is an online source of cancer information that is developed and maintained by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). It makes current, credible, and accurate cancer information available to health professionals and the public" in separate Web pages)
stands for Physician Data Query.
(iii) There are two muscles on the front of chest walls (from humans to cows and dow):
(A) The one on top and larger: pectoralis major
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pectoralis_major
(table : Latin: musculus pectoralis major; section 2 Function)
, without which the chest looks sunken -- not just flat, like a man's.
(B) pectoralis minor
(C) The English noun breast is derived from Old English; adjective mammary from Ancient Greek mámmē through Latin noun feminine mamma breast and then French, and mastoid (breast-like bony protrusion behind an ear) from Ancient Greek noun masculine mastós breast.
(D) Latin-English dictionary:
* pectoralis (adjective masculine; from noun neuter pectus chest or breast): "of or pertaining to the chest or breast"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pectoralis
* major (adjective masculine): "alternative spelling of maior"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/major
   ^ The letter j did not develop until 1524.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J
   ^ The Latin adjective masculine magnus bug has comparative maior and superlative maximus.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/magnus


(c) "In the mid-19th century, the French surgeon Alfred Armand Velpeau recommended the removal of both the breast and part of the underlying pectoral muscle * * * The development of antiseptic techniques, along with the acceptance of germ theory in the last decade of the 19th century, raised new hopes for the future of breast surgery. It was an American, William Stewart Halsted, who finally made the radical mastectomy a routine treatment for breast cancer. His approach was even more extreme than Velpeau’s, removing not only the breast but the lymph nodes, pectoral muscles and skin. * * * My surgeon, Dr Paul Thiruchelvam at Imperial College and King Edward VII Hospital in London * * * The iKnife, for example, is an 'intelligent scalpel' that can provide real-time information about whether tissue contains cancer cells."
(i) Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie_Velpeau
(ii) William Stewart Halsted
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stewart_Halsted
(iii) King Edward VII's Hospital
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Edward_VII%27s_Hospital
(1899- ; private)
(iv) There is a Wiki page for iKnife. The technology is even tested on food science. However, Food and Drug Administration has not approved it or the the underlying Rapid Evaporative Ionization Mass Spectrometry (REIMS), both of which started in 2000s.