BIOL 304 Side Panel Expand side panel Step 5 – Refection Discussion – Public Service Announcement Project

Write a brief summary of what you learned from the public service announcement assignment, highlighting the top 3 most interesting things you learned. 

For my public service announcement project, I chose the topic of breast cancer. From my research, the 3 things that stood out to me most would be firstly some of the factors that put an individual at risk for breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society (2021), a female that is tall has an increased risk of breast cancer, along with women who start their menstrual cycles early and go through menopause late. The second thing I found to be interesting was the staging for breast cancer, it uses at TNM scale as well as a traditional 0-IV scale to describe how far cancer has progressed within the body, its spread to surrounding tissues, and its size (American Cancer Society, 2021). Finally, the importance of health information sharing with genetics and mutated genes being hereditary, if you carry a mutated BRCA gene then your chances of getting breast cancer skyrocket, and your screening options and frequency change drastically.

Also, do you believe that this project, along with the course readings, quizzes and weekly discussions helped you achieve the 3-course outcomes?  Explain with at least one example. 

I do believe this project helped achieve the 3-course outcomes, and more or less made the weekly quizzes and lessons become full circle when completing the PSA project. Learning in class about cancer from its earliest stages to its latest progression and everything that can affect it along the way made the project make a lot more sense when drafting and completing it. I had a coworker who was interested in my pamphlet that I made and read it and had a lot of questions that I was surprisingly able to answer about breast cancer and how it forms and how difficult it can be to treat in later stages.

identify properties involved in maintaining homeostasis in order to recognize how certain factors contribute to cancer 

I relate this outcome with the BRCA genes associated with breast cancer. They are normal genes in the body that help to maintain homeostasis, but when mutated can put an individual at a significantly increased risk of developing breast cancer due to their already existing damage.

recognize the complexity of cancer and assess current approaches for screening, diagnosis, and treatment in order to adopt appropriate lifestyle strategies 

This one took me by surprise. Cancer is so much more incredibly complex than I realized, and not to sit with the conspiracy theorists, but so much money is funneled into cancer research and finding a cure every year that it was hard for me to imagine how we aren’t closer to a cure by now. This class has opened my eyes for sure, I had no idea how many different things and cells and pathways and systems that need to be stopped or repaired altogether to successfully put someone into remission. Not to say that it doesn’t come back or mutate and treatment stops working. For breast cancer, screening and living a healthy lifestyle are incredibly important to put someone at a lower risk. Because cancer is so aggressive, yearly screenings are so important to find cancer early and give the individual the best chance at survival.

apply knowledge of causes, development, and progression of cancer to ask questions and make informed decisions about personal and public health

The progression and development of breast cancer mainly comes down to estrogen in the body, and prolonged exposure to high amounts of estrogen puts someone at great risk. Additionally, being a carrier of a BRCA mutation and being overweight. Excess estrogen in the body is stored in body fat, so being obese and not living a healthy lifestyle means that you naturally have more estrogen in your body. Making a public or personal decision about breast cancer screenings for me comes down to how many risk factors you have. If you’re overweight, have been on estrogen-based birth control your entire life, started your menses early, and have a BRCA mutation I would be incredibly cautious when it comes to screening. Knowing the risk factors is the best way someone can protect themselves, and prevent cancer from developing and spreading to where there is no longer treatment.

 

Resources:

American Cancer Society. (2021, November 8). Breast cancer staging. American Cancer Society.

American Cancer Society. (2021, December 16). Can I lower my risk of breast cancer? American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/breast-cancer/risk-and-prevention/can-i-lower-my-risk.html

Step 5: Reflection  Discussion (3%)  –  Week 8 

Write a brief summary of what you learned from the public service announcement assignment, highlighting the top 3 most interesting things you learned. 

Also, do you believe that this project, along with the course readings, quizzes and weekly discussions helped you achieve the 3 course outcomes?  Explain with at least one example.

• identify properties involved in maintaining homeostasis in order to recognize how certain factors contribute to cancer
• recognize the complexity of cancer and assess current approaches for screening, diagnosis, and treatment in order to adopt appropriate lifestyle strategies
• ;apply knowledge of causes, development, and progression of cancer to ask questions and make informed decisions about personal and public health

You are welcome to share your assignment, or parts of it, with the class in your response, but you are not required to do so. 

Reply to at least two (2) other students’ posts. 

I learned quite a bit from the public service announcement (PSA) assignment. What really fascinated me was the types of treatment available for lung cancer, types/subtypes of lung cancer, and screening.

In my research for the project I found that there are three main types of treatment for lung cancer: radiation therapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy; there are even subtypes to treatments. I did not know that cancer treatments could be so complex, convoluted and have so many moving parts.

I also found that lung cancer exists in two main types: small cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The small cell and non small cell refers to how the look under a microscope. There are two types of SCLC and three types of NSCLC. I do not know why the latter is called non small cell instead of large cell as non small cell seems like a mouthful.

I thought that if anyone smokes for a decent amount of time in their life, they should be screened, but that is not the case, screening is only recommended if you are between the ages of 50-80 and if you have a 20 pack history. A 20 pack history means that you have smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years.

I think that the discussions, readings, assignments and quizzes have helped me achieve the three course outcomes. The reading assignments explained how cancer progresses, develops, and what causes it. I learned that cancer progresses through a process called metastasis which is filed by angiogenesis. This information may help me evaluate my perceived effectiveness of a cancer treatment in the future.