Screening for Breast Cancer

24 May

Posted by admin as cancer

Cancer Studies > cancer > Screening for Breast Cancer

Screening for breast cancer before symptoms are important. Screening can help doctors find 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 mammogram
Clinical breast exam
Self-examination of the breasts

You should tell your doctor about when to start and how often to check for breast cancer.

Screening Mammogram

To find breast cancer early, NCI recommends women in 40s and older have mammograms every 1 to 2 years. A mammography is a picture of the breast made with x-rays and women who are younger than 40 and have risk factors for breast cancer should ask their health care provider or to have mammograms and how often they have.

Mammograms can often show a breast down before it can be felt. They can also point to a cluster of small dots of calcium. These spots are called micro calcifications. Lumps or spots may be cancer, precancerous cells, or other circumstances. Further tests are needed to determine if 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 whether cancer is present.

Mammograms are the best tool doctors have to 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 appear not 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.

Mammograms (and dental x-rays, and other routine x-rays) use very small doses of radiation. The risk of damage is very low, but repeated x-rays can cause problems. The benefits nearly always outweigh the risks. You should talk with your health care provider about the need for each x-ray. You should also ask for shields to protect parts of your body that are not in the picture.

Clinical Breast Exam

During a clinical breast exam, your health care provider checks your breasts. You may be asked for your arms above your head, let them hang by your sides to increase, or press your hands against your hips.

Your health care provider looks for differences in size or shape between your breasts. The skin of your breasts is checked for a rash, dimples, or other abnormal signs. Your nipples may be squeezed to check for moisture.

Using the pads of the 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 exam is done on one side than the other. Your health care provider checks the lymph nodes near the breast to see if they are enlarged. A thorough clinical breast exam may take about 10 minutes.

Self Examination of the Breasts

You must perform monthly breast self-examination tests to check for any changes in your breasts. It is important to remember that changes can occur due to aging, your menstrual cycle, pregnancy, menopause, or taking the pill or other hormones. It is normal for breasts to feel a little lumpy and uneven. It is 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.

Breast self-exams cannot replace regular screening mammography and clinical breast exams. Studies have not shown that breast self-examination tests only reducing the number of deaths from breast cancer.

Symptoms of Breast Cancer

Common symptoms of breast cancer are:

A change in how the breast or nipple feels A solid or thickening in or near the breast or the armpit area, Nipple tenderness
A change in how the breast or nipple looks change in the size or shape of the breast, A nipple turned inward into the breast, 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 skin 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 symptom that does 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 her doctor so that problems can be diagnosed and treated as early as possible.

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