Breast cancer is a cancer that starts in the cells of the breast in women and men. Worldwide, it is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer, 10% of all cancer incidences, both sexes counted and the fifth most common cause of cancer death. In 2005, it caused 502, 000 deaths worldwide.

Because the breast is composed of identical tissues in males and females, breast cancer also occurs in males. Incidences of this cancer in men are approximately 100 times less common than in women, but men are considered to have the same statistical survival rates as women. Today, like other forms of cancer, it is considered to be the final outcome of multiple environmental and hereditary factors.

The first subjective sign is typically a lump that feels different than the surrounding breast tissue. More than 80% of this disease cases are discovered when the woman feels a lump. According to the American Cancer Society, the first objective indication of breast cancer as detected by a physician is discovered by mammogram. Lumps found in lymph nodes located in the armpits.

Other indications may include changes in breast size or shape, skin dimpling, nipple inversion, or spontaneous single-nipple discharge. Pain is an unreliable tool in determining the presence of cancer. When cancer invades the breast cell, dermal lymphatic, and its presentation can resemble skin inflammation and thus is known as inflammatory. Symptoms of inflammatory include pain, swelling, warmth and redness throughout the breast, as well as an orange peel texture to the skin.

Most symptoms of breast disorder do not turn out to represent underlying breast cancer. The appearance of a new symptom should be taken seriously by both patients and their doctors, because of the possibility of an underlying breast cancer at almost any age.