Abstract
While there are male breast cancer cases, most of the breast cancer patients are female, and it is the most common cancer among women. Multiplex estrogen-related factors such as genetic inheritance, the age of menarche/menopause, nulliparity or parity, and the age of childbirth are involved incidence of breast cancer. Currently, mammography screening is popular due to the influence of TV documentary program; however, overlooking is common in mammography. Moreover, in case of a young woman who has a fully developed mammary gland, the gland also appears white and even more prone to overlooking. When there is an actual finding, it is often nonmetastatic carcinoma in situ of the lactiferous duct. Recently, genes related to breast cancer are being elucidated, and it is known that a mutation in BRCA1 on chromosome 17 increases the onset risk of breast cancer. Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie made headline when she had a genetic screening of this gene and had a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery after learning that she had high risk of breast cancer as a preventive measure. This preventive medicine, however, is slightly excessive and possibly contains many medical ethical issues as we can see an analogy with extracting all the teeth to prevent cavities, because there has been no verification of causal relationship between this genetic mutation and breast cancer incidence conducted yet. The screening is based on a theory, and demonstration of actual onset is yet to be given. In this paper, we present such ethical problems, the results of research investigation on newly found possible causes of breast cancer based on the life habits of the people living in an area with low breast cancer incidence rate, and a consideration on breast reconstructive surgical procedure in the case of an excision after onset.
