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Early breast cancer usually does not cause pain. In fact, when it first develops, breast cancer may cause no symptoms at all. But as the cancer grows, it can cause these changes:

* a change in the color or texture of the skin of the breast or areola (such as dimpling, puckering, or scaliness).

Most breast cancer begins in the lining of the milk ducts, sometimes the lobule. The cancer grows through the wall of the duct and into the fatty tissue. Breast cancer metastasizes most commonly to auxiliary nodes, lung, bone, liver, and the brain. The most significant risk factors for breast cancer are gender (being a woman) and age (growing older). Other probable factors include nulliparity, first child after age 30, late menopause, early menarche, long term estrogen replacement therapy, and benign breast disease. Controversial risk factors include oral contraceptive use, alcohol use, obesity, and increased dietary fat intake. About 90% of breast cancers are due not to heredity, but to genetic abnormalities that happen as a result of the aging process and life in general. A woman’s risk of breast cancer approximately doubles if she has a first-degree relative (mother, sister, daughter) who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. About 20-30% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have a family history of breast cancer.