Courtesy of Roswell Park Cancer Talk Blog

Many women worry if they feel pain in their breasts because they think it might be breast cancer. However, only 1% of women who experience breast pain are diagnosed with cancer.

Kazuaki Takabe, MD, PhD, FACS, Clinical Chief of Breast Surgery at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains that breast pain can occur as a result of an infection, drinking too much coffee, stress, or exercise that strains the muscles in the same physical area as breast tissue. Also, as people age, they may feel pain in between their ribs underneath their breast.

Mammograms are important because, in addition to identifying cancerous lumps or tumors, they also identify benign growths or tumors. “We see them all the time. A cyst might show up as a benign tumor, but it’s just a bag of fluid that oftentimes will go away. Fibroadenomas are benign tumors that can regress with age. Unless they get bigger, we leave them alone. Cancerous tumors invade the lymph nodes and keep spreading: That’s why we can’t leave them alone,” says Dr. Takabe.

Roswell Park sees between 1,100 and 1,300 new breast cancer patients yearly, mostly from imaging. Typical breast cancer, when it is found, also doesn’t cause pain. Dr. Takabe explains, “If a tumor grows big enough that you can feel it, it will feel like a rock in your breast tissue. Cancerous tumors are hard and irregular in size. This is why women are encouraged to get annual mammograms starting at age 40. A mammogram can detect cancer in the breast tissue years before it becomes big enough to feel.”

The misconception that pain in the breast is a sign of breast cancer might come from the idea that cancer is painful, something people might assume based on how cancer is portrayed on television shows. “Breast cancer is a terrible disease, so people think it must be painful. That’s not the case for breast cancer,” Dr. Takabe says.

Still, Dr. Takabe says that it is important to pay attention to any changes you notice. While it could be nothing, or an infection, in some instances, although rarely, it can be breast cancer. Thus, it is important that women call their doctors to schedule a screening mammogram to be sure.

“Most of the time, we’ll take an image and there’s nothing. We’ll follow up again in a couple of months, and if we see any change, we may go even further to look into it. If there’s no change in the breast, that’s reassurance that everything is OK. We’re here to help the patient, including reassuring them.”

The Roswell Park Breast Imaging Center is located in the Scott Bieler Clinical Sciences Center. Appointments for screening mammograms are available from 8 am to 6 pm, Monday through Friday. Schedule a mammogram online at https://forms.roswellpark.org/mammography-appointment, or call 1-800-767-9355.