Signs You Have Breast Cancer as World Marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month

1.38 Million People are detected with Breast Cancer as 458 000 Die Every Year which translates to 1254 deaths every day in the World as Kenya accounts for 113 of those deaths according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Globocan, 2018.

October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it is marked in the world to increase awareness and create attention to enable early detection and ease treatment increasing survival chances.

Breast cancer is the most predominant type of cancer in women, in the developed and developing countries. New cases are reported to be rising in low and middle-income countries given the increased life expectancy, urbanization, and change of lifestyle.

There is no knowledge of the exact cause of breast cancer but early detection is crucial in controlling the menace.

Breast cancer requires early detection to necessitate adequate diagnosis and treatment to ensure a good chance of healing. Late diagnosis does not provide curative treatment as an option and in such cases, only palliative care to ease the suffering of patients and their family is offered. To ensure early diagnosis, examine your breasts, especially during warm showers to feel if there are any lumps if you are not a nursing mother. Look out for any of the below signs and seek a doctors opinion.

• Change in the look or feel of the breast, swelling, warmth, redness, darkening or any discoloration.
• Change in the look or feel of the nipple, discharge that starts abruptly.
• Lump, hard knot or thickening inside the breast or underarm
• Change in the size or shape of the breast, dimpling or wrinkling of the skin
• Itchy, scaly sore or rash on the nipple, pulling off the nipple or other parts of the breast
• Fresh pain in a single spot of the breast that does not go away.

If at all you experience any of the above, visit your health care provider, it may not necessarily be breast cancer but it is better not to take any chances.