A comprehensive clinical examination is the basis for selecting further diagnostic steps:
- General physical examination – including blood pressure, pulse, body weight, height.
- Gynecological examination
- Inspection of the mammae (breasts), right and left; nipple (breast), right and left, and skin [crusting of secretions in the area of the nipple/mammillae due to galactorrhea? /diseased breast milk discharge; signs of malignancy/malignancy: retraction of the skin (skin retraction spontaneously visible or occurrence when lifting the arms: spontaneous retraction) or undisplacement above a hardening; retraction of the nipple in advanced carcinoma; coarse pores of the skin (orange peel; peau d’orange; orange peel phenomenon].
- Palpation of the mammae, the two supraclavicular pits (upper clavicular pits) and the axillae (axillae) [tension of the breast; if necessary. Detection of galactorrhea (very rare); grade I: only a few drops can be expressed, grade II: at least 1 ml can be expressed, grade III intermittent spontaneous galactorrhea, grade IV: massive, continuous discharge of milk; leading symptom of mastopathy: fine- to coarse-grained, often pressure-sensitive nodules in the breast (frequently in the upper outer quadrant) [palpation findings (palpation findings): diffuse induration; feels bumpy and nodular; usually bilateral; sign of malignancy: indolent (painless), coarse nodule, especially in the upper right quadrant near the axilla (this is where about 50% of all carcinomas occur), plateau phenomenon – retraction over palpable (palpable) tumor when skin is pushed together with fingers (sign of connection of tumor to skin); possibly. Enlarged lymph nodes in the axillae and supraclavicular pits]
- Health check
Square brackets [ ] indicate possible pathological (pathological) physical findings.
