Breast Cancer Risk Test | Breast Cancer Screening

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Breast cancer risk factors can be dicovered during a breast cancer screening or a breast cancer risk test.

Every woman is at risk for developing breast cancer. An American woman has a 12.5% chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime. Unfortunately, there is no definitive way to determine who will develop the disease. Even with today's standard screening methods and physical examination by a competent physician, more than 70% of breast lumps are discovered by the woman herself through self-examination.

There are a number of risk factors that have been identified as increasing a person's chances of developing breast cancer, including, but not limited to:

Aging
Family history of breast cancer
Early menarche and/or late menopause
No children or first pregnancy after age 30
Personal history of breast abnormalities or benign breast disease
Genetic factors
Environmental factors
High-fat diet
Race

"The truth is, however, in more than 70 percent of breast cancer cases, women do not have any identifiable risk factors other than age." (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center)

EVEN AGE IS AN ELUSIVE PREDICTOR

It has long been held that pre-menopausal women do not develop breast cancer in significant numbers. Yet, younger women with breast cancer typically have a more unfavorable outcome and more advanced disease than older women. (Lee et al, 2002; Marcus et al, National Cancer Institute, 1994)

The latest statistics from the American Cancer Society on this group of women are alarming.

23% of new cases and 16% of breast cancer deaths between 1994 and 1998 occurred in women younger than 50 years old.
In the US, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths of women 20-59 years of age.
Over 11,000 women age 40 and under will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.

Even more disturbing, a recent study indicated that reproductive factors influence the biological behavior of breast cancer in young women. According to the researchers, women who have delivered a child within two years before diagnosis of breast cancer are at increased risk of having tumors with especially adverse prognosis profiles and have a poorer survival rate than women who have not had children or whose last birth was not within five years of the diagnosis. (Daling et al, 2002)

"Young women with breast cancer have a more unfavorable outcome and advanced disease than older women." (Lee, 2002)

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