Short answers, pulled from the story.
A new lump in the breast is the most common symptom of breast cancer though many people have no symptoms at diagnosis. Other physical changes include skin thickening known as peau d'orange swelling or dimpling of the skin and fluid coming from the nipple that may appear red or clear.
Mammography detects around 90% of tumors in fatty breasts but only 60% in extremely dense ones where dense breast tissue appears opaque on mammograms obscuring tumors. Women with dense breasts may use ultrasound magnetic resonance imaging or tomosynthesis instead to improve detection rates.
Tumors arising from mammary ducts account for 85 percent of cases as ductal carcinomas while lobular carcinomas make up 10 percent derived from mammary lobes. Rarer types include mucinous carcinoma at 2.5 percent and tubular carcinoma at 1.5 percent.
More than 90 percent of women survive breast cancer for at least five years in the United States UK South Korea Japan and Australia. Overall 92 percent of women diagnosed in the US survive at least five years from diagnosis compared to 82 percent in China and 66 percent in India.
Up to 80 percent of variation in frequency across countries stems from reproductive history impacting estrogen levels including menstruation before age 12 or menopause after 51. Giving birth as a teenager reduces risk by around 70 percent compared to childless women while breastfeeding lowers chance of developing cancer by approximately 4 percent per 12 months experience.
William Stewart Halsted started radical mastectomies in 1882 raising 20-year survival rates from 10 percent to 50 percent. Radical mastectomies remained standard care in the USA until the 1970s while Europe adopted sparing procedures in the 1950s.