Breast Lumps

Just because you have a breast lump does not mean that you automatically become a hapless victim of breast cancer. While breast lumps are the most common symptoms of the disease, not all of these are cancer-causing.

Breast changes are inevitable. From birth, to puberty, and to motherhood, a woman’s breasts undergo several transformations. Breast pain, and sometimes breast lumps come with these changes. But if some lumps are feared to be signs of serious health conditions, others are simply unavoidable part of our life cycle.

The presence of a breast lump can either be due to hormonal changes (around 80% of all breast lumps), or more serious medical condition like cancer. Since it is hard to evaluate which lumps are harmless and which are not, persistent lumps should be checked by the doctor.

There are telltale signs that will help women know that the breast lumps they discovered are the benign type, some of which are: lumps are soft; distinct and isolated lump; breast lump that moves about; presence of several lumps; identical lumps on both breasts; lump goes away after menstruation.

While these signs will definitely help women identify the benign breast lumps from the cancerous ones, these do not also eliminate the chances of getting cancer. The characteristics of the benign breast lumps are important to doctors when they make evaluations. That is why persistent lumps require a visit to the doctor.

Women who are still not certain that they only have the all-too normal breast lumps may assess them by comparing them with the characteristics of the cancerous lumps, which include the following: a hard and firm lump; lump that is not isolated; fixed lump or one is immovable in the breast; presence of a single lump; absence of an identical lump on the other breast; dimpled skin on the breast; a lump that comes with nipple discharge.

Further assessment of the breast lumps may be required through clinical breast exams. A visit to the doctor would mean a physical examination of your breasts along with a series of questions regarding your symptoms. Expect your doctor to inspect your breast, checking their shapes, sizes, and skin condition of the breasts, as well as on the surrounding areas. The doctor will also try to check for presence of lumps in breast or near the armpit. If the doctor finds a breast lump, he would then determine if it is solid or fluid-filled. A fluid-filled lump may mean a cyst. A solid lump may mean a breast tumor, a fibroadenoma, or breast cancer.

Ultrasound is necessary to assess the nature of your lump. If pain comes with the lump, your doctor may ask you to undergo fine needle aspiration to take out the fluid which will relieve the pain.

There are several other procedures that your doctor may recommend you undergo to further evaluate your breast lump. Fine needle aspiration (FNA) involves inserting a thin and hollow needle to remove fluid that may be inside the lump. A bloodless fluid means the lump is simply a benign cyst. A bloody fluid would require analysis and may necessitate you to undergo more tests.

A solid breast lump would require your doctor to get a tissue sample of it through biopsy. This works pretty much like the FNA, although this collects more than just the fluid. Ultrasound is still necessary to make sure that the needles is in the right area where samples are needed to be taken from. The samples collected will undergo analysis in the laboratory.

Finding the presence of breast lumps can be very traumatic. And even if most are as harmless as the usual zits, it is not for us to conclude.