Knowledge about your body is a key to good health. If you don’t know what you normally feel like, you won’t be able to recognize signs of illness or infection. Breast self exams help us to feel more comfortable with our bodies and give us a baseline of how we look and feel when healthy.

Mammography is the single most effective method of early detection because it can detect hidden or small cancers before they can be felt. Mammography is safe and painless, and it is highly accurate in finding breast cancer. However, it is not perfect and some lumps may be invisible due to breast density, faster growth rate, or simply failing to recognize the small signs of an abnormality. For this reason it is important to be vigilant in all three steps: Breast Self Exam, Mammography, and Clinical Examinations.

Guidelines

The American Cancer Society’s Guidelines for Early Detection

AGE 20+:
Monthly Breast Self Examination

AGE 20-39:
Monthly Breast Self Examination
Clinical Examination Every 3 Years

AGE 40 and Over:
Monthly Breast Self Examination
Clinical Examination Every Year
Mammogram Every Year

Woman's Odds of Developing Breast Cancer:

AGE	CHANCES
25	1 in 19,608
30	1 in 2,525
40	1 in 217
50	1 in 50
60	1 in 24
Lifetime	1 in 8

• Lie down and place your right arm behind your head. The exam is done while lying down, not standing up. This is because when lying down the breast tissue spreads evenly over the chest wall and is as thin as possible, making it much easier to feel all the breast tissue.
  
  
• Use the finger pads of the 3 middle fingers on your left hand to feel for lumps in the right breast. Use overlapping dime-sized circular motions of the finger pads to feel the breast tissue.
   
  
  
• Use 3 different levels of pressure to feel all the breast tissue. Light pressure is needed to feel the tissue closest to the skin; medium pressure to feel a little deeper; and firm pressure to feel the tissue closest to the chest and ribs. A firm ridge in the lower curve of each breast is normal. If you're not sure how hard to press, talk with your doctor or nurse. Use each pressure level to feel the breast tissue before moving on to the next spot.
  
  
• Move around the breast in an up and down pattern starting at an imaginary line drawn straight down your side from the underarm and moving across the breast to the middle of the chest bone (sternum or breastbone). Be sure to check the entire breast area going down until you feel only ribs and up to the neck or collar bone (clavicle).
  
  
  
• There is some evidence to suggest that the up-and-down pattern (sometimes called the vertical pattern) is the most effective pattern for covering the entire breast, without missing any breast tissue.
  
  
• Repeat the exam on your left breast, using the finger pads of the right hand.
  
  
• While standing in front of a mirror with your hands pressing firmly down on your hips, look at your breasts for any changes of size, shape, contour, or dimpling, or redness or scaliness of the nipple or breast skin. (The pressing down on the hips position contracts the chest wall muscles and enhances any breast changes.)
  
  
• Examine each underarm while sitting up or standing and with your arm only slightly raised so you can easily feel in this area. Raising your arm straight up tightens the tissue in this area and makes it harder to examine.