Signs and Symptoms of Breast Cancer in Women

There are many signs and symptoms of breast cancer in women from a lump in the breast or underarm to pain, discoloration, or any change in a size of the breast. During the early stages of the tumor’s development, there are no visible symptoms. Only has the tumor progress do signs and symptoms of breast cancer in women can be diagnosed. The most noticeable and apparent would be a lump in the breast or underarms. Following the menstrual cycle, the lump would be present as well as either pain or swelling or both in the armpits. Luckily a lump can be spotted by a mammogram even before pain or swelling occurs and therefore can be treated early reducing the risk for the lump to increase and becoming potentially life-threatening.

There are many other signs and symptoms of breast cancer in women that were once normally attributed to other diseases that are now known to be underlying symptoms of breast cancer. A change in the nipple shape and size or retraction, itching, burning sensations or rashes around the nipple and breasts, discharge from the nipple that may be liquid or blood and even ulcerations are other major signs that there is an underlying case of breast cancer. One general sign would be any change in the breast that is different from the other breast. With these many signs and symptoms of breast cancer in women, it would be easy to over diagnosis breast cancer, but that fact of the matter is there are many changes in the breast and breast tissue that do not turn out to be any sign of breast cancer at all. A regular mammogram and check up are all that would be needed to properly diagnosis if there is a chance of breast cancer occurrence.

Apart from the signs and symptoms of breast cancer in women mentioned above there is also thickening of the skin of the breast which is a sign that is usually ignored by many women because it tends not to be as noticeable as the other signs. The surest way to find out if a woman has breast cancer would be to have any number of imaging testing. Mammograms are first on the list of imaging tests because they check for screening and can show that everything is either okay or if you should get a biopsy. MRI scans can also be used alone with mammograms and are recommended for women with a high risk factor of getting breast cancer such as genetics or family history. A ultrasound can also be used since it sends sounds waves into the breast tissue and projects the image onto a screen where the doctor would be able to see the tumor. A pictogram is a special type of x-ray imaging that is used in the cases of nipple discharge, not a very common sign of breast cancer but a severe sign nonetheless. In any case most women should get a yearly mammogram in order to screen for breast cancer as well as perform personal checks for lumps in the breast and underarms as this would be the best way to identify the most common sign and symptom of breast cancer in women.