Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is marked in October annually, aims to promote screening and prevention of breast cancer, which is the most common cancer worldwide and the most common cancer in women, accounting for 25% of cancers in women globally. Breast Cancer is also the most common cancer among women in Ghana.
Early detection is the key to reducing mortality from breast cancer. Screening methods to detect breast cancer include breast self-examination, clinical breast examination by your doctor and mammography. In this article, we discuss how to perform breast self-examination to help you detect breast cancer for early treatment and to reduce the risk of dying from the disease.
Monthly Breast Self-Exam
- Inspect both breasts with your arms at your sides. Look for any changes in symmetry, size, shape and colour. Look for changes in breast swelling, redness, soreness, any visible rash and dimpling or bulging of the skin. Check for changes in the position of the nipples and whether they are retracted inwards.
- Raise your arms slowly high over your head and check for changes in your breasts and nipples as above.
- Place your hands on your hips, flex your chest muscles and compare both breasts, looking for the same changes again. Look for signs of any discharge from your nipples.
Manual Breast Exam while standing
- Feel your breasts for lumps while standing. This step can be done in the shower.
- Extend your right arm upward and examine your right breast with your left hand.
- Extend your left arm upward and examine your left breast with your right hand.
- With the pads of your fingertips and keeping the fingers flat and together, examine both breasts by pressing down with your fingers and moving them in a circular motion over the entire breast and armpit.
- Examine your entire breast from your collarbone to just above your abdomen and sideways from your armpit to your cleavage. Feel for lumps, swellings and any abnormalities. Squeeze your nipple to check for discharge.
- Use light pressure to feel the skin and tissue just underneath, medium pressure to feel the tissue in the middle of your breast and firm pressure for the deep tissue in the back close to your ribcage.
Manual Breast exam while lying down
- Next, lie down on a bed or the floor on your back. Place a pillow under your right shoulder to flatten your right breast. Place your right arm under your head.
- Examine your right breast with your left hand. Check for lumps and any abnormalities in your breast and armpit following the same process as described above. Feel your entire breast and armpit.
- Finally, place the pillow under your left shoulder to flatten your left breast. Place your left arm under your head.
- Examine your left breast and armpit with your right hand.
A breast self-exam helps you become aware of the natural look and feel of your breasts so that you can detect any changes in your breasts. A self-breast examination is not a diagnostic tool for breast cancer. It should, therefore, not replace a clinical breast exam and mammogram, which is the best screening tool to detect breast cancer.
Examining your breasts should be done once a month, 2 – 5 days after your menstrual period. See your healthcare provider if you notice any lumps or abnormalities such as skin changes, changes in the position of your nipples or any watery, milky, yellowish or bloody nipple discharge. Bear in mind that menstruation can make your breasts feel lumpier.
References
Breastcancer.org. How to do a breast self-exam: Five steps for checking for breast cancer at home. (https://www.breastcancer.org/screening-testing/breast-self-exam-bse).
MedlinePlus. Breast Self-Exam. (https://medlineplus.gov/ency/artic
