Self-examination of breasts as an element of breast cancer prophylaxis.

Increased mortality, morbidity and incidence of neoplastic diseases, malignancy especially, has been observed in Poland for over 20 years. Death rate has increased from 19.34% to 22.13% in male population and from 16.68% to 18.48% in females in 1987-1996. The prognosis for 2010 estimates ca 70,000 deaths in males and ca 40,0000 in females. In the male population, among malignancies, lung cancer accounts for the biggest number of deaths. In the female population the first place is taken by breast cancer. Breast cancer is likely to develop in any age, however it increases significantly with age. Among the causes is the lack of knowledge about self-detection of alarming signs and symptoms within breasts that should arouse their concern. The purpose of the study was to answer the following questions: 1. Do young women know the technique of self-examination of the breasts? 2. Where did they learn about the necessity of breast self-examination? 3. Do they self-examine breasts?