Introduction
Breast cancer has been denoted as the most frequently diagnosed life-threatening cancer in women, as well as the leading cause o cancer death among women. In 2008, the American Cancer Society estimated around 1.4 million new cases worldwide1.
Because there are many types of breast cancer, we are not going to mention all of them; we are just going to talk about breast cancer as a general entity.
The Cause of Cancer
Until now, for conventional medicine, the real cause of the majority of breast cancers has not been discovered. There are many theories trying to explain the cause, including genetic mutations, environmental exposure and inherited tendencies. However, any of these theories has being concluded. Every woman is at risk to develop breast cancer.
Risk Factors
Many risk factors have been identified; some of the risk factors include early menarche, nulliparity, and late menopause in premenopausal women, while obesity and hormone replacement therapy account for postmenopausal women. However, approximately 70 to 80 percent of the cases occur in women with no obvious risk factors3.
Table 1 denotes a very detailed list of risk factors made by the BCI Westmead Breast Cancer Institute.
Table 1 Established risk factors for breast cancer in women
Factor | High-risk group | Low-risk group |
Relative risk >4.0 | Relative risk <1.0 | |
Age | Old | Young |
Country of birth | ||
Mother and sister with history of breast cancer, especially if diagnosed at an early age | Yes | No |
Biopsy-confirmed atypical hyperplasia and a history of breast cancer in a first degree relative | Yes | No |
Relative risk=2.1B4.0 | Relative risk <1.0 | |
Nodular densities on the mammogram | Densities occupying >75% of breast volume | Parenchyma composed entirely of fat |
History of cancer in one breast | Yes | No |
Mother or sister with history of breast cancer, diagnosed at an early age | Yes | No |
Biopsy-confirmed atypical hyperplasia without a family history of breast cancer | Yes | No |
Radiation to chest | Yes | No |
Relative risk=1.1B2.0 | Relative risk <1.0 | |
Socio-economic status | High | Low |
Place of residence | Urban | Rural |
Race/ethnicity breast cancer at >45 years breast cancer at <45 years | White Black | Hispanic, Asian Hispanic, Asian |
Religion | Jewish | Seventh-day Adventist, Mormon |
Oophorectomy before age 40 | No | Yes |
Nulliparity, breast cancer at >40 years of age | Yes | No |
Age at first full-term pregnancy | >30 years | <20 years |
Age at menarche | <11 years | >15 years |
Age at menopause | >55 years | <45 years |
History of primary cancer in endometrium, ovary | Yes | No |
Obesity breast cancer at >50 years breast cancer at <50 years | Obese Thin | Thin Obese |
Source: BCI
.
Table 2. Probability of Developing Breast Cancer Within the Next 10 years | |
By age 30 By age 40 By age 50 By age 60 By age 70 Lifetime | 1 out of 229 1 out of 69 1 out of 42 1 out of 29 1 out of 27 1 out of 8 |
Source: Among those cancer free at age interval. Based on cases diagnosed 2000-2002. "1 in" are approximates. Source: American Cancer Society Breast Cancer Facts & Figures, 2008-2009. |
According to the statistics, the older a woman is, the greater the probabilities to develop breast cancer. Around 77% of breast cancer cases occur in women over 50 years of age.
According to the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute, (Table 3).
- White, Hawaiian, and African-American women have the highest incidence of invasive breast cancer in the United States.
- Korean, American Indian, and Vietnamese women have the lowest incidence of invasive breast cancer in the United States.
- African-American women are more likely to be diagnosed with a later stage of breast cancer than White women.
Table 3. Incidence Rates by Race | |
Race/Ethnicity | Female |
All Races White Black Asian/Pacific Islander American Indian/Alaska Native Hispanic | 127.8 per 100,000 women 132.5 per 100,000 women 118.3 per 100,000 women 89.0 per 100,000 women 69.8 per 100,000 women 89.3 per 100,000 women |
Source: National Cancer Institute, SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 2007. Statistics based on data, 2000-2004. See www.cancer.gov for more information. |
That means that approximately the incidence will be as follows:
- White women 1 in 755.
- Black women 1 in 845.
- Asian/Pacific Islander 1 in 1123.
- American Indian/Alaska Native 1 in 1432
- Hispanic 1 in 1119.
However, since a real cause has not been found, and the risk factors cannot determine if someone is at real risk to develop cancer, we would like to exemplify according to the homeopathic model the relation between the emotional conflicts and cancer.
Case study
A 28 year old lady who was diagnosed with breast cancer of the right breast, lumpectomy had been already performed and she was about to start with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Her risk factors according to the western model:
28 years old: 1 in 1760.
Hispanic race: 1 in 1119
No family history of breast or ovarian cancer: low probability.
Low socio-economic status: low probability
Seventh-day Adventist religion: low probability
Menarche at 14years and 10 months: low probability
In general, all her risk factors are too low to think that she could be at high risk, even at risk to develop breast cancer.
The Homeopathic Model
The homeopathic model is based on 8 principles7,8 (table 4); the first of them is the vital principle which is known as the vital force that is in charge of keeping the balance between the body and the mind (figure 1).
Table 2. The Homeopathic Principles |
1. Vital Principle 2. Natura morborum medicatrix 3. Similia similibum curantur 4. Pure experimentation 5. Individuality of the illness 6. Individuality of the medication 7. Minimum dose 8. principle of the Miasmasprinciple of the Miasmas |
Source: Ortega 1997.
|
| |
Figure 1. Outlines the balance between mind and body.
Homeopathically speaking, illness is the disequilibrium of the vital force which will cause an unbalance on the relation between body (organs) and mind (emotions). According to this model the sequence of illness starts with the disequilibrium of the vital force, followed by manifestations at the level of the mind, and once the body is not able to cope with these manifestations it will express the physical problem.
A physical problem will be manifested once a mental problem has been developed and your own nature is not able to heal it; both of them, the emotional problem and the physical manifestation will be in direct relation. Therefore, the physical manifestations are going to be of the same kind (defect, excess or destruction) as the manifestations of the mental symptoms7,8.
The real cause of cancer
As mentioned before, if we follow the homeopathic model, we have to find the reason why, the vital force was disturbed in the first place, the disturbance can be caused by any emotional conflict at any level, once you find the emotional problem that caused the disequilibrium of the vital force and you get the relation of emotional manifestations, you will be now, able to make the relation in time and kind of the emotional problem with the physical problem, in this case we talk about cancer, but it could be any other kind of pathology.
Our patient who has a very low risk to develop cancer, developed breast cancer even with that low risk, but once we dig into her emotional state, we discover the relation of an emotional disturbance during her childhood and youth with the way she manifested her physical problem.
Her emotional problem started at a very young age with problems with her mother, who she felt never gave her affection and support, our patient grew in the middle of low self-esteem and lack of self-worth9, because of that she found very difficult to have relations with other people, becoming a very lonely person.
She grew, finding her relation with her mother too difficult to cope with it and finally leaving her home and migrating to another country in an effort to put some distance in between; once in another country she felt more comfortable and with more peace of mind even getting to the point of missing her mother, but every time that she tried to contact her, she received the same answer coming from her to the point of putting her down again on her mood.
Finally she developed breast cancer of the right breast, lower quadrant; the manifestation was very subtle, a very small mass not very developed but with enough negative stimulus to be malignant.
The characteristics of the mass were similar of that of the personality; her personality was the one of timidity, very reserved person with low self-esteem but with enough resentment to her mother to make that little lump malignant10.
Conclusion
When we talk about cancer, the first thing to think about is the emotional background that, in homeopathic terms, is the very first expression of the illness and therefore the real cause of the problem, treating this real cause the probability for the cancer to come back is very low. If once treated this problem we treat any other emotion that could have been originated by the diagnosis itself (cancer) like fear, death thoughts, low self-esteem, etc then the probabilities to suffering from a metastasis or recurrence are even lower.
Biography
1. Jemal A, Siegel R, Ward E, Hao Y, Xu J, Thun MJ. 2009 “Cancer Statistics, 2009” CA Cancer J Clin; 59(4): 225-49.
2. Elmore JG, Armstrong K, Lehman CD, Fletcher SW. 2005 “Screening for Breast
Cancer” JAMA; 293(10):1245-56.
3. National Cancer Institute (2006). “Probability of Breast Cancer in American Women” http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Detection/probability-breast-cancer.
4. BCI. Westmead Breast Cancer Institute “Risk Factors for Breast Cancer” http://bci.org.au.
5. American Cancer Society Breast Cancer Facts & Figures, 2008-2009.
6. National Cancer Institute, SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 2007. Statistics based on
data, 2000-2004. See www.cancer.gov.
7. Ortega PS. 1997 “Introducción a la medicina homeopática teoría y técnica” 2nd ed.
8. Hahnemann S. 1982 “Organon of Medicine” 6th ed, Los Angeles: JP Tarcher, Inc.
9. Bartel H. 1987 “Synthetic Repertory” Vol I, Ed. B. Jain Publishers (P) Ltd.
10. Bailey PM. 1995 “Homeopathic Psychology: Personality Profile of the Major Constitutional Remedies” Ed. North Atlantic Books.
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