Paget's disease of the breast

Paget’s Disease of the breast; how bad is it?

Many of you will have heard of Paget’s Disease, which is a serious bone disease, but many of you will not have heard of Paget’s Disease of the breast, so I am hoping that the ladies out there reading this will take notice of the content because they could come in touch with this disease at some time in their life. I sincerely hope not
What Is Paget’s disease Of the Breast?
It is an eczema type change in the skin of the nipple, and most women that develop it, will have an underlying breast cancer.
Paget’s disease occurs in about 1 or 2% of women that have breast cancer, it appears firstly as a scaly, red rash affecting the nipple and the areola. It can be very sore, may bleed and it will not go away.
The disease can be difficult to diagnose, because it can be very similar to other skin problems like eczema or dermatitis, but this disease usually affects the nipple first then spreads to the areola, whereas the other skin problems usually start in the surrounding areas, first before spreading to the nipple.
This is a rare form of breast cancer, and is on the outside of the breast, on the nipple and areola. It appeared as a rash, which later became a lesion with a crusty outer edge. It is most time overlooked and not suspected to be a disease.
One of the biggest problems with Paget’s disease of the nipple is that the symptoms appear to be harmless. It is frequently thought to be a skin inflammation or infection, leading to unfortunate delays in detection and care.
What are the symptoms? The symptoms include:
A persistent redness, oozing, and crusting of your nipple causing it to itch and burn. (As I stated, mine did not itch or burn much, and had no oozing I was aware of, but it did have a crust along the outer edge on one side.)
A sore on your nipple that will not heal. (Mine was on the areola area with a whitish thick looking area in center of nipple).
Usually only one nipple is affected. How is it diagnosed? Your doctor will do a physical exam and should suggest having a mammogram of both breasts, done immediately.
Even though the redness, oozing and crusting closely resembles dermatitis (inflammation of the skin), your doctor should suspect cancer if the sore is only on one breast. Your doctor should order a biopsy of your sore to confirm what is going on.
This message should be taken seriously and passed on to as many of your relatives and friends as possible; it could save someone’s life
My breast cancer has spread and metastasized to my bones after receiving mega doses of chemotherapy, twenty eight treatments of radiation and taking Tamaxofin.
If this had been diagnosed as breast cancer in the beginning, perhaps it would not have spread”.
TO ALL READERS: This is sad as women are not aware of Paget’s disease.
As we all know, early diagnosis is so important with all kinds of diseases, so if you are in any doubt about any medical problem, for goodness sake, make an appointment to see a Physician, soon as possible.
Thanks for reading and do something, anything, no matter how little to raise awareness for Paget's disease of the breast. Let’s protect our women with this little step.

Resources
https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1101235-overview
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/breast-cancer/about/types-of-breast-cancer/paget-disease-of-the-nipple
Karakas C. (2011). Paget's disease of the breast. Journal of carcinogenesis, 10, 31. https://doi.org/10.4103/1477-3163.90676
Ashikari R, Park K, Huvos AG, Urban JA. Paget's disease of the breast. Cancer 1970;26(3):680–685. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar
Kollmorgen DR, Varanasi JS, Edge SB, Carson WE. Paget's disease of the breast: a 33-year experience. J Am Coll Surg 1998;187(2):171–177. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar