With the increasing improvement of people’s living standards, women are paying more and more attention to their health. As a symbol of women’s beauty, breasts are being taken care of more and more. In fact, only very few of the breast lumps we see are breast cancer. The incidence of breast cancer in Asia is low worldwide, and Shanghai has the highest incidence of breast cancer in China, with 46 breast cancer patients per 1 million people. In recent years, although the incidence of breast cancer is increasing, the mortality rate of breast cancer is decreasing. There are two important factors: firstly, women’s awareness of self-protection has increased, the medical insurance system has become more and more perfect, and the means of breast cancer treatment has improved, resulting in a higher rate of early detection of breast cancer, and the 5-year survival rate of early breast cancer patients is 86%. For example, molecular targeted therapies for breast cancer have shown initial advantages, such as antibodies that can specifically bind to breast cancer cells to kill them; breast cancer surgery has also changed from large to small, which is less and less traumatic and more humane to patients. The treatment of breast cancer also tends to be more instrumental, less painful, more cosmetic, and as human as one wishes. Most breast cancer patients come to the clinic because they find breast lumps, but it does not mean that breast lumps are cancer, so what are those common breast lumps diseases? Generally speaking, breast lumps can occur in a variety of diseases, such as: breast enlargement, breast fibroadenoma, acute mastitis, breast cancer, etc. Let’s talk about how to identify breast lumps. (1) Breast enlargement: Due to the improvement of living standards, the acceleration of the pace of life, the increase in the pressure of work life, coupled with the excessive use of cosmetics containing estrogen. Unbeknownst to us, estrogen is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can keep women looking good, but on the other hand, it can also cause the proliferation of breast duct epithelial cells and make them malignant. At present, the occurrence of breast enlargement is very common. Statistics from our clinic show that 70-90% of women who come to our clinic have breast enlargement. Many women are reminded by the hospital, “You have some breast enlargement.” This makes many women very nervous and afraid of being linked to breast cancer. Most patients with breast enlargement have premenstrual pain, pain that is relieved after menstruation, pinprick-like or swelling pain, and many nodules or lumps in the breast during self-examination. Some women use incorrect techniques to grasp and pinch their breasts, suspecting them to be “lumps”, but in fact they are not lumps, but normal breast glandular tissue. Ultrasound is a non-invasive, easy-to-use diagnostic tool that can differentiate between cystic and solid lumps, and between nodules and lumps. In most patients, ultrasound only indicates ductal structural disorders, which do not require special treatment and can be reviewed regularly at the hospital once a year. If a nodule or mass is found, careful women will pay attention to every word depicted by ultrasound, such as: nodule or mass with indistinct borders, no obvious envelope, somewhat strong echogenicity within, or with abundant blood flow, in which case early surgical treatment is indicated. In the absence of these signs, an X-ray of the mammogram is recommended. If gauze-like calcifications are found in the nodule, surgical treatment is required; otherwise, a review is performed every 3-6 months. Generally speaking, breast enlargement is not a precancerous lesion of breast cancer, and the chance of breast enlargement developing into breast cancer is very small (1%-3%), so women with breast enlargement should not be nervous, as long as they pay attention to adjust their emotions, relieve stress and cooperate with some treatments, breast enlargement will not threaten their health. (2) Fibroadenoma of the breast: Most of them occur in young women around 25 years old. Most of them will tell the doctor that they have found a “wandering” lump in their breast, which is round or oval in shape, and this is the characteristic of fibroadenoma. In addition, fibroadenomas can suddenly increase in size during pregnancy. Treatment is mainly surgical excision. At present, our breast surgery department has carried out the application of vacuum breast biopsy system to perform breast fibroadenoma excision, the incision is only 3mm, which has significant cosmetic effect and is favored by female patients. (3) Acute mastitis: usually occurs in breastfeeding women, especially in primiparous women, when mastitis occurs the patient mostly has systemic symptoms, such as: chills, fever. The local skin of the breast is red, swollen, with pressure pain, and the breast can be felt as a lump with unclear boundaries. Early treatment is based on antibacterial agents. It must be treated early, otherwise the breast will be secondary to abscess, requiring surgical incision and drainage, which will leave permanent scars. (4) Breast cancer: Most patients come to the clinic with breast lumps, which are mostly painless lumps. Doctors often say that most of the painful ones are lobular hyperplasia, while the non-painful ones may be cancer. Ultrasound indicates that the lump has no envelope, rich blood flow, and strong echogenicity of light dots. Sometimes we may see the “dimple” or orange peel-like appearance of breast skin, which are characteristic changes of breast cancer. For early stage breast cancer, we can use breast preservation surgery or personalized breast reconstruction to recreate the beauty of women; some women may ask what to do if the lump is larger than 3cm. We can also use neoadjuvant chemotherapy (chemotherapy before surgery) to reduce the size of the tumor and then perform breast preservation or breast reconstruction surgery. In general, we also need to perform ipsilateral axillary lymph node dissection for breast cancer surgery. Our breast surgery department has carried out axillary lymph node dissection with breast lumpectomy, which is aesthetic and minimally invasive. All of the above are common breast lump diseases. If you find a lump, go to the hospital as early as possible. If a breast lump is really found to be breast cancer, we should also face the reality and actively cooperate with the treatment. Life itself is full of twists and turns, joys and pains, and it is impossible to have smooth sailing, no matter what time it is, we should face it positively. The disease is not scary, what we fear most is to lose the confidence of life.