An oncologist, Dr Samantha Okoro, has advised women to regularly go for check-ups and other breast cancer preventive and management measures.
Okoro told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin on Wednesday that women should also conduct self-examination monthly by lying on a smooth surface to feel their breasts for cancer symptoms.
The oncologist at the Estate Clinic in Benin said that it was imperative for women to repeatedly visit hospitals for check-ups, adding that the first stage of cancer is treatable.
She said that the most common symptom of breast cancer, women should watch out for, is a lump or mass in the breast, usually painless, with irregular edges at the early stage.
Okoro listed other symptoms to include breast lump or thickening that feels different from the surrounding tissue, change in the size, shape or appearance of a breast.
Others are changes to the skin over the breast, such as dimpling, newly inverted nipple, peeling, scaling, crusting or flaking of the pigmented area of skin surrounding the nipple (areola) or breast skin.
Okoro added that women were usually exposed to breast cancer due to the accumulation of some breast cells.
