POTENTIAL SIGNS OF BREAST CANCER

You know how your breasts look and feel. If something feels different, have it checked out.

FEELING A lump in the breast is a classic sign of breast cancer, but there are other less-well-known signals that can tip off potential trouble.

“The hope is that women know their own bodies and would find a mass before it becomes palpable, but the truth is that radiologists can find tumours so small – 3, 4 or 5 millimeters – that it’s rare to be able to feel a small tumour before it can be discovered by mammogram,” said Dr Therese Bevers, medical director of the Cancer Prevention Center at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas, and an expert in breast cancer screenings.

Today, breast self-exams are not widely recommended, but that doesn’t mean you should stop investigating your breasts, Bevers said. The keywords now are “breast awareness. You know how your breasts look and feel. If something feels different, have it checked out,” Bevers said.

Women themselves discover “a substantial amount of breast cancer because nobody knows a woman’s body as well as she does herself,” said Dr Rachel Brem, director of breast imaging and intervention at The GW Medical Faculty Associates in Washington, D.C.

“Women have to understand that mammograms are imperfect. Fifteen percent of breast cancers cannot be seen on mammograms. The death rate of breast cancer has decreased 35 per cent in the past few decades, and mammograms are one part of that. They’re one tool in our toolbox, but there’s other things like MRIs, diagnostic ultrasounds and molecular breast imaging,” Brem said. “We have many kinds of technology; no one size fits all.”