TRI-CITIES, Wash. –
According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime.
October 13th is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day, which is a day meant to shed a light on the people around the country living with metastatic breast cancer.
“I do understand the concerns of too much early screenings but from my point of view I would rather have a false positive any day of the week than not knowing that I had an aggressive tumor growing inside my body” said Joan Lunden, award-winning journalist and breast cancer survivor.
Metastatic breast cancer, also known as Stage 4 breast cancer, is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. Most common places would be bones, lungs, brain and liver. The process of cancer spreading is called metastasis, it happens when cancer cells break away from the original tumor in the breast.
According to the CDC, symptoms of breast cancer include:
– New lump in the breast or armpit
– Thickening or swelling of part of the breast
– Irritation or dimpling of breast skin
– Redness or flaky skin in the nipple area or the breast
– Pulling in of the nipple or pain in the nipple area
– Nipple discharge other than breast milk, including blood
– Any change in the size or the shape of the breast
– Pain in any area of the breast
The CDC also wants to remind people that these symptoms can happen with other conditions that are not cancer.
