04/10/2025
🩷BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH 🩷
💙What is breast cancer?
Breast cancer occurs when your breast tissue cells rapidly divide and grow abnormally. As these cells multiply, they accumulate and form lumps known as tumours.
Breast cancer usually starts in cells in your milk ducts or in your glandular tissue that supplies them with milk called lobules. As cancer grows, the cells can spread to your lymph nodes or other parts of your body.
Your doctor will stage your cancer according to the size of your tumour and whether and how far it has spread to help decide what your treatments options are.
The exact cause of breast cancer development in some people is not fully understood. However, there are risk factors that are known to increase the likelihood of developing breast cancer. They include:
💙women over 50 years of age who have been through the
💙menopause
💙family history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in close relatives
💙previous non-cancerous breast lump or breast cancer
💙being overweight or obese
💙drinking alcohol
You should regularly check your breasts and become familiar with their shape and feel so that you can recognise if any changes take place.
The first breast symptoms women usually notice is a lump or an area of thickened tissue in their breast that was not there before. Most often breast lumps are not cancerous but you should always get them checked by your doctor.
Other common breast cancer symptoms to have checked by your doctor include a change in size and shape of one or both breasts, a fluid discharge from either of your ni***es, a swelling or lump in either of your armpits, dimpling of your breast skin, or a rash on or around your ni**le.
Buckshaw Hospital's All in One Breast Clinic has been developed to help ease the anxiety of breast symptoms, such as the discovery of a breast lump.
