Screening for Breast Cancer
Screening for breast cancer before symptoms are important. Screening can help doctors detect and treat cancer early. The treatment is more likely to work well when cancer is found early.
Your doctor may suggest the following screening tests for breast cancer:
Screening mammography
clinical breast examination
self-examination
you should tell your doctor about when to start and how often to check for breast cancer.
Screening mammograms
to find breast cancer early, NCI recommends that women 40 years and older have mammograms every 1 to 2 years. A mammogram is a picture of the breast X-ray and women who are younger than 40 and are risk factors for breast cancer should ask their health care provider or to have mammograms and how often.
Mammograms can often show the chest down before they can be heard. They can also point to a group of small dots of calcium. These points are called micro calcifications. Lumps or spots may be cancer, precancerous cells, or other circumstances. Further tests are needed to determine whether abnormal cells are present.
If an abnormal area shows on your mammogram, you may have more x-rays. You may also need a biopsy. A biopsy is the only sure way to tell if cancer is present.
Mammograms are the best tool doctors find breast cancer early. However, mammograms are not perfect:
A mammogram may miss some cancers. (The result is a “false negative”.)
A mammogram may show things that do not seem to have cancer. (The result is a “false positive”.)
Some rapidly growing tumors can be large or spread to other parts of the body before a mammogram detects grow.
Mammography (and x-rays, and other routine x-rays) use very small doses of radiation. The risk of damage is low, but repeated x-rays can cause problems. Almost always the benefits outweigh the risks. You should talk with your healthcare provider about the need for each x-ray. You should also ask for shields to protect parts of the body that are not in the picture.
Clinical Breast Exam
During a clinical breast exam, your health care provider checks your breasts. There may be asked for your arms above your head, let it hang from the hips to increase, or press her hands against her hips.
Your health care provider looks for differences in size or shape between the breasts. The skin of the breast is checked for a rash, dimples, or other abnormal signs. Nipples may be squeezed to control the humidity.
Using the pads of your fingers to feel for lumps, your health care provider checks your entire breast, underarm and collarbone area. A lump is generally the size of a pea before anyone can feel. The examination is done on one side than the other. Your health care provider checks the lymph nodes near the breast to see if they enlarged. A thorough clinical breast exam may take about 10 minutes.
Self Examination of the breasts
you must perform monthly breast self-examination test papers to check for any changes in your breasts. It ‘important to remember that change can occur due to aging, the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, menopause, or taking the pill or other hormones. It is normal for breasts to feel a bit ‘lumpy and uneven. It ‘also common for your breasts to be swollen and tender right before or during menstruation.
You should contact your insurance company if you have an unusual change in your breasts notice.
Self-examination tests can not replace regular screening mammography and clinical breast examinations. Studies have shown that breast self-examination exams alone reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer.
Symptoms of breast cancer
The most common symptoms of breast cancer are:
A change in how the breast or hear a sound or thickening in or near the breast or armpit area, nipples tenderness
A change in how the breast or watch the change in size or shape of the breast, a nipple turned inward into his chest, and the skin of the breast, areola, or nipple may be scaly, red or swollen. It may have ridges or pitting so that it looks like the peel of an orange.
Nipple discharge (fluid)
early breast cancer usually does not cause pain. However, a woman should see her health care provider about breast pain or other symptoms that do not go away. Usually these symptoms are not due to cancer. Other health problems can also cause them. Any woman with these symptoms should tell their doctor so that problems can be diagnosed and treated as soon as possible.