Compare one breast to the other and look out for:

• Thickening, rashes or colour changes in your skin or nipples such as redness if you have white skin, or darkening if you have brown or black skin
• Changes in breast size, shape or texture especially comparing one side to the other
• Swelling – a change in the contour of the breast
• Pain
• Changes to the shape or position of the nipples or a crustiness to the nipple and skin around it
• Discharge from the nipple that stains your bra/clothing without squeezing, especially if blood stained

If you're concerned about a lump or change in your breasts, it's important to get yourself checked as soon as possible to rule our anything serious that might need further investigation.

If you have a concern you should contact your doctor, or visit one of GenesisCare's one stop breast clinics where you can book an investigation, including mammogram, and discuss the findings with a senior breast surgeon on the same day.

About one in five women diagnosed with breast cancer through screening will have non-invasive breast cancer. This means there are cancer cells in the breast, but they’re only found inside the milk ducts and have not spread any further. This is also called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Sometimes the cancer cells stay inside the ducts, but they may also grow into the surrounding breast at a later date.

About four in five women diagnosed with breast cancer through screening will have invasive breast cancer. This is cancer that has grown out of the milk ducts and into the surrounding breast tissue. Most invasive breast cancers will spread to other parts of the body if left untreated.

Other types of invasive breast cancer include:

• Locally advanced breast cancer, where the cancer has spread to other areas nearby, such as the chest wall (including the skin and muscles of the chest) and lymph nodes
• Secondary (metastatic, advanced or stage 4) breast cancer, where cancer has spread to other parts of the body, such as the bones, liver or lungs
• Inflammatory breast cancer (where the skin is invaded by breast cancer cells) and Paget’s disease (where there are cancer cells on the nipple) which are less common

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is the presence of pre-cancerous cells inside the milk ducts in one or both breasts. It is considered the earliest form of breast cancer and is sometimes referred to as Stage 0, or pre-invasive or non-invasive cancer. Cells that start to change, divide, and grow abnormally like this might eventually become an invasive breast cancer, but with DCIS that hasn’t happened yet. The abnormal cells have stayed inside the milk ducts and haven’t developed the ability to spread.

If left untreated, DCIS may (but not always) become invasive breast cancer, where it spreads outside the ducts.

However, usually DCIS doesn’t return or ever progress to a more invasive stage after it has been removed by surgery. So, finding and treating DCIS early almost always means a good outlook.

Early invasive breast cancer is primary breast cancer that has started in the breast and remains in the breast. It might have spread into the local lymph nodes around your breast, but not elsewhere in the body.

There are two main areas where breast cancer is found:

• In the milk ducts. This is where most breast cancer starts. This is called invasive ductal breast cancer
• In the lobes (the milk-producing glands). This is called invasive lobular breast cancer

When the origin of the cancer cells can’t be confirmed, it is termed NST – which means ‘no special type’. That means the cancer cells don’t have any particular features when viewed under a microscope.

Some early breast cancers spread to the lymph nodes, this is called locoregional early breast cancer.

It’s possible to have different breast cancers at the same time, for example invasive ductal and invasive lobular. It is very common for invasive ductal breast cancer to be found with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) – which is a type of pre-cancer.

Secondary breast cancer starts as a primary breast cancer in the breast. The cells develop the ability to move to other parts of the body (metastasise), usually through the lymphatic system (which fights infection) or blood. When they settle elsewhere, they start to grow there and become a secondary cancer.

Secondary cancer is also referred to as metastatic, advanced or stage 4 cancer.

The most common sites where secondary breast cancer spreads are:

• bones (skeleton)
• brain
• liver
• lung

Secondary breast cancer in the liver is not the same as primary liver cancer. The cancer cells started in the breast and spread to the liver so the treatments used are breast cancer therapies.

Sometimes a primary cancer that has been treated can return months or years later as secondary cancer.

Some breast cancer cells have a protein on their surface called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). Some cancer cells make more of this protein than they should and use it to grow quickly and spread. These are called HER2 positive breast cancers.  Approximately one in five invasive breast cancers is HER2 positive.

There are effective treatments available for HER2 positive breast cancers. These are often called targeted therapy, monoclonal antibody or biological therapies.

Cancers that don’t produce more of this protein are called HER2 negative.

It’s also possible to be both HER2 negative and ER and PgR negative. This is known as triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Patients with triple negative breast cancer don’t benefit from targeted or hormone therapies, but other treatments, including chemotherapy, are helpful.