Breast cancer can be detected if any thickening or lump I the breast is felt at the time of self-examination.
Some more symptoms which may give rise to breast cancer suspicion are nipple inversion, scaly skin on breast, lump in armpit, nipple discharge, reddening of the breast skin, breast pain, nipple itching and change in the shape or size of the matured breast.
It is always not essential that a person experiencing any of these symptoms has breast cancer, but a doctor checkup is always advisable.
With the help of palpation, the doctor will tell the actual status of your breast.
MRI can also be done to detect any kind of problem in the breast.
The mammography can also be done.
Once everything is confirmed, the doctor would recommend the patients to go for a breast biopsy.
The breast biopsy is a process which includes taking a sample tissue from a suspicious breast lump.
This may be done by two processes; surgical and non-surgical methods.
In the case of a surgical biopsy, a sample tissue is taken after making an incision on skin.
At times, if the lump in the breast is very small; entire lump can also be removed.
The non-surgical includes core needle biopsy, vacuum assisted biopsy and fine needle aspiration biopsy.
The core needle biopsy and fine needle aspiration biopsy make use of the needle in order to collect the sample tissues.
But the needle that is used in the core needle biopsy is hollow and thicker.
Whereas, the vacuum assisted biopsy uses some special instrument in order to remove the samples.
The breast biopsy can be carried out in a hospital and even in a small clinic.
It all depends upon the size of the lump present.
For the surgical process, the general anesthesia or local anesthesia may also be used.
The non-surgical method does not require anesthesia.
The risk of any sort of complications like infections is very less and the entire process is carried out by the doctors very quickly.
It involves very less or even no pain and can be decreased with the help of pain relievers.
The results of biopsy may be normal and abnormal.
The normal result indicated that there is no cancer present, whereas, an abnormal result indicates a malignant or benign.
A malignant or better known as cancerous growths involves adeno carcinoma, lobular carcinoma, infiltrating ductal carcinoma, etc.
A benign growth involves non-cancerous problems like papilloma, adenofibroma, cyst and fat necrosis.
In case of benign, no further procedures are involved.
Merely regular checkups are recommended.
But in the case of malignant, further treatment is recommended.
A second opinion is always advisable so that quick actions can be taken against the problem.