How Should a Manual Examination Be Done Against Breast Cancer?
- How Should a Manual Examination Be Done Against Breast Cancer?
- How Should Manual Inspection Be Done?
- What is mammography?
Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer today. Breast cancer, which is seen in millions of women around the world, occurs especially in advancing ages. In the early diagnosis of breast cancer, it is very important for women to check themselves periodically. Every woman over the age of 20 is required to perform a manual examination once a month.
How Should Manual Inspection Be Done?
Self-examination in breast cancer is of vital importance for early detection. Manual inspection, which is recommended and even described by experts, should be as follows:
- Women should be in front of the mirror and in an area that receives sufficient light when doing self-examination. The hands should be placed on the waist and both breasts should be checked for any shape changes such as color, shape, size or structure. Then the hands should be placed behind the head and continue to observe in the same way.
- The second step in palpation in breast cancer is to check the left breast with the right hand and the right breast with the left hand in front of the mirror. In this way, it should be checked whether there is any swelling or stiffness by pressing lightly as if drawing small circles on both breasts.
- The tips of both breasts should be taken between the fingers and examined without squeezing too much.
- After the chest control, both armpits should be checked with the back of the hand.
- It will be easier to perform the self-examination on wet and soapy skin while in the shower.
In addition, all stages of palpation should be performed in the supine position, placing a support under the breast to be controlled. If there is a remarkable or suspicious situation at the end of the examination, a specialist should be consulted as soon as possible.
What is mammography?
Mammography is a low-dose chest X-ray to detect masses that are too small to be diagnosed during self-examination. Masses that are too small to be understood during the manual examination performed by women can be detected and diagnosed by this device and x-ray. Moreover, the probability of surviving breast cancer with mammography is known to be 95 percent. Therefore, in such cases, the quality of the mammography and the correctness of the interpretation made by the specialist are of vital importance.
