Breast cancer's indications other than lump may also include some changes in the size of breast or skin dimpling, shape, spontaneous single-nipple discharge or nipple inversion. Pain is a tool considered unreliable in determining the absence or presence of breast cancer that may be indicative of breast health issues.

When the cells of beast cancer invade dermal lymphatics vessels in skin of breast and it presentation can be resemble and thus it is knows as inflammatory breast cancer.

Breast cancer presents occasionally as metastatic disease, it is cancer that has spread beyond original organ. This type of cancer will cause the symptoms depend on location of the metastasis.

Primary risk factors for breast cancer that have been identified are age, sex, hormones and childbearing, alcohol intake, high-fat diet, environmental factors as tobacco use, obesity, shiftwork and radiation. Woman who had breast cancer in one beast has increased risk for getting cancer in other one as well. Risk of breast cancer in woman is higher if it had in her sister, mother or daughter. Some women have breast cells in breast that looks abnormal under microscope.