If the number of fundraising events that crop up every spring and summer are any indication, breast cancer resonates deeply and emotionally as a health issue among women — and even some men — in the United States. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it’s the most common cancer in women. About 1 in 8 women, roughly 12 percent, will be diagnosed with an invasive breast cancer in her lifetime.
Breastcancer.org, a nonprofit organization that provides information about the disease, projects that 255,180 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 63,410 new cases of noninvasive, or in situ, breast cancer will be diagnosed in American women in 2017. The words breast cancer alone strike fear among women, and when first diagnosed many find themselves seeking answers about the disease.
[See: What Not to Say to a Breast Cancer Patient.]
Although breast cancer detection techniques have improved over the years and survival rates have increased, being diagnosed with breast cancer is still all too common and scary. For many women, the only reason they found out about their cancer was through routine testing and screening.
Dr. Melissa Pilewskie, a breast surgeon oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, writes in an email that “many breast cancers have no noticeable symptoms at all, which is why screening is so important.”
However, some breast cancers do present warning signs. “If symptoms are present, breast cancer can present with a change to the breast, including a palpable mass in the breast or under the arm, nipple retraction or new nipple discharge, skin thickening or skin discoloration,” Pilewskie says. And being able to detect these changes requires women to be familiar with their breasts; hence, they’re often encouraged by doctors to conduct monthly breast self-examinations to look for any changes.
Breasts are made up of fat, fibrous connective tissue, glandular tissue, nerves, blood vessels and a complex network of milk-producing lobules and ducts. Given all that’s going on inside the breast, the terrain can naturally feel lumpy, bumpy and uneven. There is great variation across women in how breast tissue looks and feels — breasts can vary wildly depending on a woman’s weight, age, genetics and hormonal profile, so it’s important to know what’s normal for you. The only way to do that is to get familiar with your breasts by checking them regularly and noticing how they change over time.
[See: 10 Seemingly Innocent Symptoms You Shouldn’t Ignore.]
If you’re at risk for breast cancer or are concerned you could develop it, pay attention to any changes that occur in your breasts. If you notice anything that seems different or if you develop pain in your breasts, go see your doctor.
Specifically, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital guidelines indicate you should monitor for the following:
— “A lump or thickness in or near the breast or under the arm
— Unexplained swelling or shrinkage of the breast, particularly on one side only
— Dimpling or puckering of the breast
— Nipple discharge (fluid) other than breast milk that occurs without squeezing the nipple
— Breast skin changes, such as redness, flaking, thickening or pitting that looks like the skin of an orange
— A nipple that becomes sunken (inverted), red, thick or scaly”
If you notice any of these sorts of changes, see your doctor as soon as possible.
[See: Breast Pain? Stop Worrying About Breast Cancer.]
Many women will find a lump in their breast at some point in their lives, and it doesn’t automatically mean you have cancer. The American Cancer Society reports that 80 percent of breast lumps are noncancerous and can be caused by a range of different conditions. Often, these hard areas are caused by fibrous tissue or cysts. Cysts are simply fluid-filled sacs within the breast tissue, and they may go away on their own. Doctors might drain very large or uncomfortable cysts with a needle. These lumps and bumps may be tender or increase in size during your menstrual period, as the levels of various hormones circulating in your body fluctuate.
More often than not, a tender or sore lump is noncancerous, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule; inflammatory breast cancer, an aggressive but rare form of breast cancer, is often signaled by swelling, redness and pain in the breast.
Although cancerous lumps tend to be more irregular in shape, the only way to know whether any lump is dangerous or benign is by asking your doctor. “It’s certainly important to have a general awareness of the breast, your breasts, and to seek evaluation for any abnormal lumps or bumps or painful areas,” says Dr. Harold Burstein, institute physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “It’s also important to seek evaluation if there’s abnormal nipple discharge or other things that don’t seem right. Having said that, lumps and bumps in the breast are very common, and while breast cancer is also common, it’s only a small percent of all the kinds of things that women get evaluated for with changes in the breast. Most of the time when a woman has those symptoms, you do a physical exam, and you get imaging like mammograms and ultrasounds and MRIs. You might even get a biopsy, but most of the time it’s benign.”
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What Signs Will Tell Me I Might Have Breast Cancer? originally appeared on usnews.com
