What is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an international health campaign that is held every October. The month aims to promote screening and prevention of disease, which affects 2.3 million women worldwide.

The month is aimed at:

• Supporting people diagnosed with breast cancer, including those with metastatic breast cancer;
• Educating people about breast cancer risk factors;
• Encouraging women to go for regular breast cancer screenings, starting at age 40 or earlier, depending on circumstances;
• Fundraising for breast cancer research.

At Williamsons Solicitors, we appreciate the importance of breast cancer awareness, and strive to make our society more aware of breast cancer, as well as supporting those who have suffered breast cancer.

What is breast cancer & how can it be spotted?

Breast cancer is when abnormal cells in the breast begin to grow and divide in an uncontrolled way and eventually form a growth (tumour).

Breast cancer starts in the breast tissue, most commonly in the cells that line the milk duct of the breast and is the most common cancer in the UK. In addition, and contrary to belief, breast cancer can affect both men and women, albeit mainly affecting women.

Everyone must be breast aware, meaning you must have an understanding on how your breasts normally look and feel. If you notice a change that isn’t normal for you, make an appointment to see your practice nurse or doctor. You can ask them if you need a referral to the breast clinic.

The NHS has produced a 5-point plan for being breast aware:

• Know what is normal for you;
• Look at and feel your breasts;
• Know which changes to look for;
• See your doctor about any unusual changes;
• Attend screening if you are 50 years or older.

What to look for?

You are looking and feeling for changes in the size, shape or feel of your breasts and armpits. Most people naturally have one breast bigger than the other and this is normal.

Changes to look for:

• a new lump or thickening in your breast or armpit
• a change in size, shape or feel of your breast
• skin changes in the breast such as puckering, dimpling, a rash or redness of the skin
• fluid leaking from the nipple in a woman who isn’t pregnant or breast feeding
• changes in the position of nipple.

We at Williamsons know all too well the importance of diagnosing breast cancer at the earliest opportunity and understand the devastating impact of going through a misdiagnosis. We currently assist a number of clients in respect of misdiagnosis of breast cancer claims; an example of this is the case of Mrs X.

Her case centres around the failure by a breast clinic to diagnose invasive lobular breast cancer, with Mrs X having been referred by her GP who had noted that she had a lump and changes to her nipple, namely retraction. In spite of the practitioner in the clinic also noting that the nipple appeared different to that of the other breast, they placed over-reliance on an ultrasound which was interpreted as being normal and she was discharged from the clinic with no plan of review or any further investigations, such as a biopsy.

Over-reliance on the ultrasound and the discounting of clinical findings has led to the diagnosis of breast cancer being delayed by approximately one year and by the time the cancer was eventually diagnosed, it had progressed, spreading to the lymph nodes.

Our expert medical negligence solicitors have a wealth of experience on dealing with cancer misdiagnosis claims. If you would like to speak to one of our experienced team, please contact Williamsons at 01482 323697.