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For all its controversy, Breast Cancer Awareness Month can be a good reminder to learn more about breast cancer. Some good places to start might be examining your personal risk of developing the disease, giving yourself a breast exam, and scheduling your next breast cancer screenings.
Breast cancer is the 2nd most common cancer worldwide.
Every 14 seconds, somewhere in the world, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.
U.S. breast cancer statistics
People of every country, race, ethnic group, and income level are affected by breast cancer. In the U.S., the percentage of women diagnosed with breast cancer has been slowly rising for the past couple of decades.
- A woman in the U.S. today has a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer over her lifetime and a 1 in 43 chance of dying from breast cancer.
- Nearly 30% of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer later develop metastatic breast cancer.
- Lesbian, gay, and bisexual cisgender women may have a higher risk of breast cancer than heterosexual women due to risk factors like fewer childbirths and higher alcohol use
- The average lifetime risk that a man in the U.S. will develop breast cancer is 1 in 726.
- Transfeminine people taking gender-affirming hormone therapy, including estrogen, are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer than cisgender men.
- There are about 4 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S., including women receiving breast cancer treatment.
- While the percentage of women dying from breast cancer has gone down in recent decades, Black women remain more likely to die from breast cancer than women of any other racial or ethnic group.
Breast Cancer Risk Factors
We don’t know what causes breast cancer. But we do know there are factors you can control, such as smoking and drinking alcohol, which can increase your risk of developing the disease.
Everyone wants to know what they can do to lower their breast cancer risk. Although doctors don’t know what causes breast cancer, they do know there are factors linked to a higher-than-average risk of developing the disease. Some factors associated with an increase in breast cancer risk — being a woman, your age, and your genetics, for example — can’t be changed. Other factors — lack of exercise, smoking cigarettes, and eating certain foods — can be altered by making lifestyle choices.
By choosing the healthiest lifestyle options possible, you can empower yourself and make sure your breast cancer risk is as low as possible.
The known risk factors for breast cancer are listed below. If a factor can’t be changed (such as your genetics), you can learn about protective steps to help keep your risk as low as possible.
Known breast cancer risk factors
▪ Sex: Being a woman, or a person assigned female at birth, is one of the most important risk factors for developing breast cancer.
▪ Age: As with many other diseases, your risk of breast cancer goes up as you get older. About two out of three invasive breast cancers are found in women 55 or older.
▪ Family History: Women with close relatives — especially sisters, mothers, or daughters — who have been diagnosed with breast cancer have a higher risk of developing the disease.
▪ Genetics: About 5% to 10% of breast cancers are thought to be hereditary, caused by abnormal genes passed from parent to child.
▪ Personal History of Breast Cancer: If you’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer, you’re three to four times more likely to develop a new cancer in the other breast or a different part of the same breast.
▪ Radiation to Chest or Face Before Age 30: If you had radiation to the chest or face to treat another cancer or acne, you have a higher-than-average risk of breast cancer.
▪ Certain Breast Changes: If you’ve been diagnosed with certain benign (not cancer) breast conditions, you may have a higher risk of breast cancer.
▪ Race/Ethnicity: White women are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than Black, Hispanic, and Asian women. But Black women are more likely to develop more aggressive, more advanced-stage breast cancer diagnosed at a young age.
▪ Being Overweight: Overweight and obese women have a higher risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer compared to women who maintain a healthy weight, especially after menopause.
▪ Pregnancy History: Your age when you give birth to your first child and the number of times you’ve given birth — including if you’ve never had a full-term pregnancy — can affect your risk of developing breast cancer.
▪ Breastfeeding History: Breastfeeding can lower breast cancer risk, especially if you breastfeed for longer than one year.
▪ Menstrual History: Women who had their first period before they turned 12 have a higher risk of breast cancer later in life.
▪ Using HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy): Some types of HRT can increase the risk of breast cancer in people with certain risk factors.
▪ Using Hormonal Birth Control: Hormonal forms of contraception (such as the pill, patch, and hormonal IUDs) may slightly increase the risk of breast cancer.
▪ Drinking Alcohol: Research shows that drinking alcoholic beverages of any kind increases a woman’s risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.
▪ Dense Breasts: Women with dense breasts have a higher risk of developing breast cancer.
▪ Lack of Exercise: Research shows a link between exercising regularly at a moderate or intense level for four to seven hours per week and a lower risk of breast cancer.
▪ Smoking: Smoking is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer in younger, pre-menopausal women.
Things to do this Breast Cancer Awareness Month
- If you know someone who is living with breast cancer or has been affected by the disease, check in with them to ask them how they’re doing.
- Schedule your annual mammogram. Encourage your friends and family to do the same.
- Learn more about breast cancer and how it affects people’s lives from Breastcancer.org’s news, educational content, podcasts, and more.
- Join community discussion forums to ask questions or connect with others. Breastcancer.org also hosts multiple virtual support groups each week.
- If you’d like to support breast cancer research and programs that support people living with breast cancer, consider donating directly to organizations that do this work.
Courtesy: Breastcancer.org