October of each year is the "World's Month for Prevention and Control of Breast Cancer", which is also called "Pink Ribbon Month". Breast cancer is the commonest cancer among women, as well as "No.2 killer" for the death of women, only after lung cancer. To enhance the awareness of the public in breast cancer, various publicity activities will be staged in this period across the world. Earlier, famous architectures such as White House, Tokyo Tower and Burj Dubai have put on a pink outfit in succession to appeal the public to pay more attention to breast cancer.

Burj Dubai dressed in pink to publicize the "World's Month for Prevention and Control of Breast Cancer"

Nowadays, over 4 million pink ribbons and more health education materials will be distributed across the world each year. The Pink Ribbon Campaign for Prevention and Control of Breast Cancer has been extended to 50 countries and regions including China, which is conveying "three early" concepts (early testing, early discovery, early treatment) to tens of millions of women.

Morbidity rate of breast cancer rising from year to year and showing a tendency among young women

Breast cancer has always been ranked top in morbidity of malignant tumors of women. Throughout the world about 1.40 million people are diagnosed as breast cancer each year, and about 500,000 of them die from the disease. It's alarming that according to a retrospective research of ten years conducted by the Breast Cancer Center, the average age of patients receiving treatment is 48.7 years, which is 10 years in morbidity earlier than the white Westerners. Among them, over 1/3 breast cancer patients are confirmed at the ages 40-49. The morbidity of breast cancer seems to show characteristics such as "urbanization" and "high-end groups". In developed cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the morbidity rate of breast cancer is higher, which may be related to the higher mental stress and higher absorption level of fat and protein among the urban women.

White House dressed in pink to publicize " World's Month for Prevention and Control of Breast Cancer"

Gene mutation is the foundation and key to the occurrence of breast cancer

Under similar environment and living conditions, and contacting with similar exogenous carcinogenic factors, some will develop cancer, while others won't. This indicates that though the external factors are important, the internal factors (gene) are the foundation and key. Different types of gene vary in sensitiveness to the environmental factors. Specific sensitive gene, under the environmental impacts, will make normal cells subject to pathology, malignant proliferation and result in the occurrence of cancer. Besides, breast cancer can also be caused alone by abnormal gene of family heredity. Approximately 5-10% of breast cancer cases are hereditary.

BRCA1/BRCA2 are two favorable genes to suppress the occurrence of malignant breast cancer, which are also called "cancer suppressor gene" and play an important role in the damage repair and normal growth of cells. They are also related to oval cancer. If the structures of BRCA1/BRCA2 gene have undergone some change (or called "mutation"), then the carriers of the mutated gene are vulnerable to breast cancer or oval cancer.

Not all carriers of BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation will develop into cancer patients. They simply have a higher susceptibility to cancer. Researches prove that approximately 80% of carriers of BRCA1/BRCA2 gene mutation will develop into cancer patients.

For prevention and control of breast cancer, gene testing is the first defense line

HYK Gene adopts its independently developed high-throughput gene sequencing machine to conduct DNA sequencing on the blood of respondents, to learn about the information of the virulence gene, predict the risk for them to catch breast cancer, thereby improving their living environment and habits and avoiding or postponing the occurrence of breast cancer.

At present, gene testing of breast cancer is the only testing method that can provide reference information for diagnosis or prevention before the morbidity of the disease. By keeping a close watch on the high-risk groups carrying sensitive gene and vulnerable to gene mutation, it is helpful for early discovery, early diagnosis and early treatment of breast cancer and truly realize "treat the disease before the morbidity".

Which women need to take gene testing for breast cancer

Generally, women aged 30-35 or high-risk groups who have some family members with breast cancer should take the test. In a family, if two or above members are cancer patients, or the same member has two or more cancers, then it indicates a very strong heredity, for which gene testing is highly suggested. According to the clinical data, if the person has a pathogenic mutation in specific gene, the risk of the person to catch the disease will be 5-6 times higher than the groups whose family has no history of cancer.

Difference between gene testing for breast cancer and the conventional medical testing

At present, many women rely on the conventional check of hospitals. However, gene testing and conventional testing belong to two different stages. Gene testing is the first stage which predicts what kind of disease one will get before the actual occurrence of the disease, which is based on prevention and is thus covered by preventive medicine. Conventional testing is the second stage which is used to detect which stage the disease has developed after the occurrence of the disease, such as early stage, middle stage or late stage, which is based on treatment and thus covered by clinical medicine.

Early prevention keeps you away from breast cancer

"Early prevention, early discovery, early treatment" are the key to the solving of breast cancer at present. The curing rate of breast cancer when it's discovered at the early stage is generally higher than 90%. However, since at the early stage, breast cancer generally shows no typical symptoms or signs, it's uneasy to attract attention from us. Usually until the middle and late stage will it show distinctive symptoms such as breast mass or abnormality. However, at this time, the breast cancer cells have already diffused. Therefore, it is extremely important to do well in gene testing and early prevention.