Breast Cancer Facts
What you need to know:
How can I prevent breast cancer?
The causes of breast cancer are not fully understood, although it is clear that a woman's age, gender and lifetime exposure to estrogen and her age at the time of her first childbirth play an important role.
Because no one knows exactly what causes breast cancer, there are no sure ways to prevent it. However, there are steps that every woman can take that may makedevel oping breast cancer less likely. These include eating healthy, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly and limiting the amount of alcohol you drink. Leading a healthy lifestyle will not eliminate your chance of getting breast cancer, but it may help reduce your risk. For women at higher risk, the antiestrogen drug tamoxifen can also help to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer.
How do I know if I am at risk for breast cancer?
All women are at risk for breast cancer. Known risk factors like having a family history of breast cancer, starting menopause after age 55 or never having children account for only a small number of new breast cancer cases every year. That means that most women who get breast cancer have no known risk factors except being a woman and getting older.
Who gets breast cancer?
For example, did you know:
The older a woman is, the more likely she is to get breast cancer?White women are more likely to get breast cancer than women of any other racial or ethnic group? They also have a better chance of survival, primarily because their cancer is usually detected earlier.African American women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women.
Men can get breast cancer too, although it is rare. Less than one of every 100 cases of breast cancer in the U.S. occurs in men.in 2007, it is estimated that men will account for 2,030 cases of breast cancer.
An estimated 182,800 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in 2000.
Approximately 42,200 deaths will occur in women from breast cancer in 2000.
One in eight women or 12.6% of all women will get breast cancer in her lifetime.
Breast cancer risk increases with age and every woman is at risk.
Every 13 minutes a woman dies of breast cancer.
Seventy-seven percent of women with breast cancer are over 50.
Approximately 1400 cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in men in 2000 and 400 of those men will die.
More than 1.7 million women who have had breast cancer are still alive in the United States.
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women between the ages of 15 and 54, and the second cause of cancer death in women 55 to 74.
Seventy-one percent of black women diagnosed with breast cancer experience a five-year survival rate, while eighty-six percent of white women experience five-year survival.
The first sign of breast cancer usually shows up on a woman's mammogram before it can be felt or any other symptoms are present.
Risks for breast cancer include a family history, atypical hyperplasia, delaying pregnancy until after age 30 or never becoming pregnant, early menstruation (before age 12), late menopause (after age 55), current use or use in the last ten years of oral contraceptives, and daily consumption of alcohol.
Early detection of breast cancer, through monthly breast self-exam and particularly yearly mammography after age 40, offers the best chance for survival.
Ninety-six percent of women who find and treat breast cancer early will be cancer-free after five years.
Over eighty percent of breast lumps are not cancerous, but benign such as fibrocystic breast disease.
Oral contraceptives may cause a slight increase in breast cancer risk; however 10 years after discontinuing use of oral contraceptives the risk is the same as for women who never used the pill.
Estrogen replacement therapy for over 5 years slightly increases breast cancer risk; however the increased risk appears to disappear 5-10 years after discontinuing the use of estrogen replacement therapy.
You are never too young to develop breast cancer! Breast Self-Exam should begin by the age of twenty.
Resources:
American Cancer Society
National Cancer Institute
Komen Foundation
Breast Cancer Related Links
Services include peer counseling, pamphlets, and a list of resources.
www.y-me.org
Provides information and links for women facing breast cancer.
www.nationalbreastcancer.org
Seeks to eradicate breast cancer through action and advocacy, focusing on research, access to care.
www.natlbcc.org
Offers information and support to those affected by breast cancer.
www.breastcancercare.org.uk
Group of survivors trying to bring people together to further the issues and activities surrounding breast cancer in young women.
www.youngsurvival.org
Nonprofit organization strictly dedicated to funding clinical and genetic research.
www.bcrfcure.org
Charity committed to fighting breast cancer through research and awareness.
www.breakthrough.org.uk
National charitable organization dedicated to the support and advancement of breast cancer research, education, diagnosis, and treatment. Also includes information on the CIBC Run for the Cure event.
www.cbcf.org
Provides funding for advocacy, support, education as well as research into better ways to prevent, detect, and treat breast cancer.
www.breastcancerfund.org