Symptoms of breast cancer metastasis

What are Symptoms of Breast Cancer?

In 2011, over 230 thousand new cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed in US women with another almost 60 thousand of non-invasive breast cancer (carcinoma in situ). With the chance of an American woman developing breast cancer being 1 in 8, what are symptoms of breast cancer that can alert her to seek proper evaluation and treatment?

First of all, instead of asking what are the symptoms of breast cancer, we should be asking what are the symptoms and signs of breast cancer. A symptom is something you sense. You feel pain, or numbness or tingling. You can describe your pain but no one else can experience it. A sign is something observable. When you take your temperature, it’s the same temperature if you take it, your mom takes it or if a nurse takes it. If you can feel (medical providers like the term palpate) a lump in your breast, a nurse or physician should be able to palpate that lump as well. Any trained eye should be able to detect an abnormality on a mammogram. This is the scary problem with breast cancer. By the time you have any pain in your breast (or worse, have pain elsewhere because the cancer has spread), the tumor has grown quite a bit. Many diseases will make you hurt or make you sick in relatively early stages of the disease progression. Your best chance of identifying and beating breast cancer is to look for it.

The American Cancer Society provides a list of signs and symptoms of breast cancer and the only symptom is breast or nipple pain. Before you experience pain, you’ll probably be able to identify one of these signs if you look for them. The first is swelling in all or part of the breast. This will happen if the tumor blocks the breast’s extensive lymphatic system. Next is a turning in of the nipple (inversion) or dimpling of the skin of the breast. As the tumor grows, it pulls in on the connective tissue of the breast. Look for redness, scaliness or a thickening of the nipple or breast skin making the skin look like the surface of an orange (called peau d’orange). Any nipple discharge other than milk from a nursing mother needs to be investigated. This would be an early sign of a milk duct cancer. The earliest sign that you could notice at home would be a lump in the breast or armpit that you detect during your monthly breast self-exam (BSE). It’s recommended that the exam be performed in the bath or shower because it is easier to detect lumps if the skin surface is wet or slippery. Lastly, the American College of Gynecology (ACOG) recommends a yearly mammogram for women over 40, or younger if you have a strong family history. They believe the benefits of early detection outweigh any risk of damage from radiation exposure.

In summary, the best defense against breast cancer is vigilance. Knowing what are symptoms of breast cancer, and also what are signs, and then seeking medical attention as soon as you detect one of these symptoms or signs offers you the best chance of confronting and beating this deadly disease.