Initial results from a programme of breast self-examination.

As part of a national study of early detection of breast cancer, 28663 women aged between 45 and 64 have been invited to attend a teaching programme on the method of self-examination with the advice to practise it regularly. This paper reports the early results of the Nottingham study on 14905 who have attended. To date there have been 717 self-referrals. One hundred and thirty-nine of these had a significant abnormality on either clinical examination or mammography and eight biopsies have been performed. Cancer was detected in 43 women. This is a detection rate of 2.9 cancers per 1000 educated. Mean tumour size was 2.3 cm (0.5-6.0 cm) and 56% were lymph node negative.