What are breast cancer’s early warning signs? Is there a way to tell if I have breast cancer? Early stage breast cancer usually doesn’t cause any symptoms or signs.
Sometimes it is possible to feel a lump in the breast, but it is important to remember that most breast lumps are not cancerous (benign).
Breast cancer is usually not painful.

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Is there a cure for breast cancer?
Treatments are available for breast cancer that include surgery, hormone therapy radiation therapy, and for some types of cancer, chemotherapy.
The exact type of treatment will depend on the type of breast cancer that is present and certain specific biomarkers that are found in the cancer cells.
When the cancer is discovered early, survival rates and outcomes are excellent for many common types of breast cancer. Who might develop breast cancer? Although breast cancer can affect anyone, women are at greater risk than men.
Age is also associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. People with a personal or family history of breast cancer are also at increased risk.
Are There Different Types of Breast Cancer?
The breasts are made of fat, glands, and connective (fibrous) tissue. The breast has several lobes, which split into lobules that end in the milk glands. Tiny ducts run from the many tiny glands, connect together, and end in the nipple.
Eighty percent of breast cancers originate in these ducts. Breast cancer that develops in the ducts is called ductal cancer. Cancer developing in the lobules is termed lobular cancer. About 10%-15% of breast cancers are of this type.
Inflammatory breast cancer, medullary cancer, phyllodes tumor, angiosarcoma, mucinous (colloid) carcinoma, mixed tumors, and Paget’s disease are among the less common types of breast cancer. Precancerous changes, called in situ changes, are common.
In situ is Latin for “in place” or “in site” and means that the changes haven’t spread from where they started (also called non-invasive cancer).
The medical term for changes that take place in the ducts in situ is ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Routine mammography may identify DCIS.
Lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) refers to abnormal-appearing cells in the milk-producing lobules of the breast. This is considered a non-cancerous condition that increases a woman’s risk for breast cancer.
When cancers spread into the surrounding tissues, they are termed infiltrating cancers. Cancers spreading from the ducts into adjacent spaces are termed infiltrating ductal carcinomas. Infiltrating lobular carcinomas are cancers that spread from the lobules. The most serious and dangerous cancers are metastatic cancers. Metastasis means that the cancer has spread from the place where it started into other tissues distant from the original tumor site. The most common place for breast cancer to metastasize is into the lymph nodes under the arm or above the collarbone on the same side as the cancer. The brain, the bones, and the liver are also common metastases of breast cancer. Cancers that have spread only into the lymph nodes under the arm are still curable. Those that spread to distant lymph nodes or other organs are not usually curable with available treatments today. Treatments can extend lives for years even in these cases.
What Are Breast Cancer Causes and Risk Factors?
Many women who develop breast cancer have no risk factors other than age and gender.
Gender is the biggest risk because breast cancer occurs mostly in women.
Age is another critical breast cancer risk factor. Breast cancer may occur at any age, though the risk of breast cancer increases with age. The average woman at 30 years of age has one chance in 280 of developing breast cancer in the next 10 years. When a woman is 40 years old, this chance rises to one in 70, and when she is 50 years old, it rises to one in 40. A 60-year-old woman’s risk of developing breast cancer in the next ten years is one in thirty. White women are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than African-American women in the U.S.
A woman with a personal history of cancer in one breast has a three- to fourfold greater risk of developing a new cancer in the other breast or in another part of the same breast. This refers to the risk for developing a new tumor and not a recurrence (return) of the first cancer.
Genetic Causes of Breast Cancer
Family history is a risk factor for breast cancer. Both maternal and paternal relatives are important. The risk is highest if the affected relative developed breast cancer at a young age, had cancer in both breasts, or if she is a close relative. First-degree relatives (mother, sister, and daughter) are most important in estimating risk. Several second-degree relatives (grandmother, aunt) with breast cancer may also increase risk. Breast cancer in a male increases the risk for all his close female relatives. Having relatives with both breast and ovarian cancer also increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.