Self-Exam Tips

When to Seek Help | Risk Factors For Breast Cancer

Lie down and place your right arm behind your head. Use the finger pads of the three 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 the breast tissue. Light pressure is to feel the tissue closest to the skin. Medium pressure is to feel the deeper tissue and firm pressure is to feel the tissue closest to the ribs and chest. Use each level before moving to the next spot.

Move around the breast in an up and down pattern from the underarm and moving across the breast to the middle of the chest bone. Be sure to check the entire breast area going down until you feel only ribs and up to the collar bone. There is evidence that the up and down pattern is the most effective one for covering the entire breast without missing anv breast tissue.

While standing in front of a mirror, with your hands pressing firmly down on your hips, look at your breasts for any changes in size, shape, contour, dimpling, redness or scaliness of the nipple and the breast skin. Examine each underarm while sitting up or standing, with your arm only slightly raised so you can easily feel in this area.

This self-exam is not to take the place of annual exams by qualified physicians.
Early detection is the #1 way to beat breast cancer!