For those with advanced breast cancer chemotherapy is a major treatment. Tamoxifen can help by blocking the action of oestrogen in the breast Surgery and radiotherapy may also be used. Nine out of 10 lumps are benign but the rest need immediate treatmentTreatment: Patients with early breast cancer generally have the tumour removed and have radiotherapy to avoid recurrence. The incidence increase with age.
Symptoms: It is important to visit the doctor if you find a lump either in the breast or the armpit, discharge from the nipple, nipple eczema, wrinkling of the skin around the nipple or pain in the breast. Very few cases appear in young women but the disease is diagnosed in more than 1,000 women aged 35-39 every year.

BREAST CANCER

Who gets it: One in 12 women in Britain will develop breast cancer at some time in their life Every year it is diagnosed in more than 34,000 women. Men can get breast cancer but it is comparatively rare among them – there are only about 200 new cases a year. Nor did it take into account the introduction of screening programmes which catch cancer earlier.Dr Lesley Walker of the charity said that the outlook was all now “very different” because of recent developments, such as the US tobacco companies’ admission that their product was addictive, with possible further moves to regulate nicotine and the Government’s plans to ban tobacco advertising.But despite medical advances, all the charities say that lifestyle changes are the most important way of avoiding cancer, whether quitting smoking, eating a healthier diet or examining our breasts for lumpsn. The CRC said that it did not take account of the difficulty of predicting 21 years ahead – particularly the impact of legislation from five government terms of office. Their main findings were that the risk of developing prostate cancer will triple, lung cancer will drop sharply in men but double in women, and breast cancer will continue to rise.Macmillan admit that their study is based on current trends, but the CRC and the ICRF yesterday issued a joint statement calling for the figures to be revised or withdrawn. The change, the researchers, said is due to the ageing population, improved treatments which mean that more people will be living with cancer, and rises in certain types of cancer.

It would not be seen to possess that important element for any contemporary work – challengingness. It wouldn’t – terrible thought – have “intervened” in the local “space”. But the presence of strongly worded opposition instantly defuses that ghastly possibility. This is why these ceremonies matter and why the Arts Council itself, if the day ever comes when the traditions show signs of weakening, should make sure that Wet Blanket continues to enrich our cultural life – with public subsidy if that is what it takesn.

It was Richard Nixon who declared the war on cancer: three decades on, whether we are winning the battle is still a matter of furious debate. Yesterday a report by the Macmillan Cancer Relief Fund predicted that half the population will face the risk of cancer by the year 2018, with the number of people affected rising 70 per cent.
But the report has caused a row with two other major cancer charities, the Cancer Research Campaign and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, who said that Macmillan had based their study on a worse-case scenario and that cancer cases were likely to fall with a decline in smoking and improvements in diet.A spokeswoman for Macmillan said yesterday they were standing by their findings, carried out by Dr Tom Davies and Diane Stockton of Cambridge University, which said that while today 640 people in the UK are diagnosed with cancer every day, by the year 2018 that daily total will be well over 1,000. But it’s so much more satisfying if that process can take place in the teeth of initial indignation – that is if the work can conspicuously demonstrate its powers of endurance and seduction.If no one objects, not one budget-minded councillor or disappointed dabbler in oils (R.A.-rejected), then the awful possibility would arise that the work might not be art at all, just a civic amenity, as inert and uncontroversial as a children’s slide or a floral clock. Naturally, they hope to appeal to the broader constituency, to see the work adopted by local people as a much-loved asset and snapshot pilgrimage point. This was the route Lord Palumbo took – “It is one of those works which lift the spirit and raise expectations,” he said. People would come from miles around to have their expectations raised, predicted one of the Chief Booster’s civic attendants. The ceremony is then generally concluded by an announcement that the work will “put the town on the map”, a declaration that always surprises a few literal-minded citizens, who had complacently assumed that cartographical recognition had been theirs for years.So beloved have these rituals become that it is quite difficult to imagine an unveiling without its attendant kerfuffle.