Breast cancer is a rampant health problem across the country, with about 240,000 cases of this disease diagnosed in women and about 2,100 in men every year. Like many other kinds of cancer, breast cancer is easier to deal with for healthcare professionals and patients if it is detected and diagnosed in its initial stages. There are certain typical signs that emerge in this disease’s early stages and keep worsening from thereon.

Symptoms of breast cancer

Change in size or appearance of the breasts
The tumor in breast cancer grows steadily from the initial stages. Therefore, someone with a developing case of this disease will feel a lump or a bulge growing in their breasts. This automatically magnifies the size of one’s breasts over time. This clearly indicates an abnormal and potentially dangerous tumor growing in the breast area. Apart from the size, even the overall appearance of one’s breasts undergoes a transformation when they initially develop this cancer. For example, it is common for someone with this condition to find changes in skin tone and puckering in and around the areola of their breasts.

Swelling in armpits
The swelling that a woman initially discovers in and around her breasts tends to spread to other nearby areas as well. Therefore, this swelling that is first spotted in the chest area may be found in areas such as the armpits and upper part of the diaphragm.

Swelling around the collarbone and armpits are mainly caused by the cancer spreading rapidly across the lymph nodes in those areas. In fact, in many instances, this spread happens even before one feels a lump in their breasts. This is why healthcare professionals advise women to seek help immediately when they experience hardness or swelling in their breasts and armpits.

Pain and tenderness in the chest
Most kinds of breast cancers do not cause a sharp, stinging pain in the breasts in the early phases. However, this health condition does cause deep and nagging pain in the breasts and surrounding areas. Mostly, women with initial-stage breast cancer experience a sensation of discomfort and pressure in the affected areas. As the malignancy progresses, people with this condition will experience excruciating pain in the later stages. Therefore, it is imperative for women who face the above-mentioned nagging pain to consult an oncologist or, simply, their local physician and get a quick checkup to get an accurate diagnosis.

Apart from breast cancer, other non-cancerous conditions, such as mastitis, also bring about pain in the chest. So, a quick checkup and diagnosis also confirm that someone does not have cancer. This can greatly relieve and alleviate some of the stress that a cancer diagnosis inherently brings.

Irritation in the breast skin
Tumors generally cause changes and debilitation to the skin layers above them. So, along with the nagging pain, women tend to experience itching and irritation in their breasts in the initial stages of breast cancer. The itching and irritation are also brought about by the inflammation that breast cancer causes in and around the lymph nodes and breasts in women.

Dimpling in and around the nipples
As implied above, breast cancer causes widespread inflammation in a woman’s chest area. One of the by-products of this inflammation is dimpling. It involves the blockage of lymph vessels in the skin of people. These vessels carry lymph, the fluid that facilitates the carriage of excessive fluids throughout one’s body to the bloodstream.

Redness and rashes in and around the breasts
As stated earlier, one of the common effects of initial-stage breast cancer is the changes it brings to the skin in and around a woman’s breasts. One such effect caused directly by the malignancy is rashes and redness around the areola. In many cases, the rashes can be found in areas as distant as one’s underarms and the side profile. As implied earlier, these rashes have a peculiar color and appearance that does not match the surrounding skin area. Skin redness is accompanied by the customary itching and irritation in the area.

Nipple retraction
The skin and nodes are not the only zones directly affected by the malignancy. A common indicator of breast cancer is also when a woman’s nipples point inwards (as opposed to pointing outwards, which is the natural position of the breasts). The skin getting affected, and the changes in the cellular structure of the breasts are responsible for this inversion.