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Over 70 percent of breast cancer cases occur in women who have no identifiable risk factors. Every woman is at risk for breast cancer, and the risk factors include:

• Gender: Simply being a woman is the main risk factor for developing breast cancer. This is due to the fact that female breast cells are constantly exposed to the growth-promoting effects of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone. Although rare, men do also get breast cancer. For more information, click male breast cancer.
• Age: Your risk of developing breast cancer increases as you get older.
• Genetic Risk Factors: Having an inherited mutation in BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 genes may increase your risk to as high as 80%
• Family History: Having a first degree relative (mother, sister, or daughter) with breast cancer approximately doubles a woman’s risk, and having two first degree relatives with breast cancer will increased her risk five times.
• Personal history of breast cancer: A woman with cancer in one breast has a 3- to 4-fold increased risk of developing a new cancer in the other breast or in another part of the same breast. This is different from a recurrence (return) of the first cancer.
• Race and Ethnicity: White women are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than are African American women; however, African-American women are more likely to die of breast cancer. At least part of this seems to be due to the fact that African-American women tend to have more aggressive tumors. Asian, Hispanic and Native-American women have a lower risk of developing and dying from breast cancer.
• Dense Breast Tissue: Women with denser breast tissue (as seen on a mammogram) have more glandular tissue and less fatty tissue, and have a higher risk of breast cancer. Unfortunately, dense breast tissue can also make it harder for doctors to spot problems on mammograms.
• Menstrual Periods: Women with a long menstrual life, uninterrupted by pregnancy, (starting menstruation at an early age, before 12, or went through menopause at a late age, after 50) have a slightly higher risk for breast cancer. This may be related to a higher lifetime exposure to the hormones estrogen and progesterone.
• Previous Chest Radiation: Women who, as children or young adults, had radiation therapy to the chest area as treatment for another cancer (such as Hodgkin disease or non-Hodgkin lymphoma) are at significantly increased risk for breast cancer. This varies with the patient’s age when they had radiation. If chemotherapy was also given, it may have stopped ovarian hormone production for some time, lowering the risk. The risk of developing breast cancer from chest radiation is highest if the radiation was given during adolescence, when the breasts were still developing. Radiation treatment after age 40 does not seem to increase breast cancer risk.
• Not having children, or having them later in life: Women who have had no children or who had their first child after age 30 have a slightly higher breast cancer risk. Having many pregnancies and becoming pregnant at a young age reduce breast cancer risk. Pregnancy reduces a woman’s total number of lifetime menstrual cycles, which may be the reason for this effect.
• Recent Oral Contraceptive Use: Studies have found that women using oral contraceptives (birth control pills) have a slightly greater risk of breast cancer than women who have never used them. This risk seems to decline back to normal over time once the pills are stopped. Women who stopped using oral contraceptives more than 10 years ago do not appear to have any increased breast cancer risk. When thinking about using oral contraceptives, women should discuss their other risk factors for breast cancer with their health care team.
• ERT: The long term use of estrogen replacement therapy has shown a slight increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer in some studies. Within five years of stopping ERT this risk is reduced to that of the general population.

For a complete breast cancer risk assessment, visit www.cancer.gov/bcrisktool/

Too young to have breast cancer?

Despite widespread opinion that young women don’t get breast cancer, the reality is that they can and do. In fact, one in every 229 women between the ages of 30 and 39 will be diagnosed with breast cancer within the next 10 years.

The good news is that with early detection and treatment, the five-year survival rate is over 82 percent. That’s four out of five who survive.

Because breast cancer in younger patients is less common, many of these women face delayed diagnosis. Often she is told by her health care provider that she is “too young” to have breast cancer, and diagnostic tests are not recommended as quickly as for older patients. About 80 percent of younger women find the breast cancer themselves. Armed with basic knowledge of breast cancer, how to examine her own breasts, and the awareness of what is normal for her body, a young woman can intelligently advocate for the testing she needs.

Men and breast cancer.

The American Cancer Society estimates that about 2,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer are diagnosed annually among men in the United States. Because men have very little breast tissue, cancers do not need to grow very far to reach the nipple, skin covering the breast or the muscles underneath the breast tissue. Even though breast cancers in men tend to be slightly smaller than in women when they are first found, they have more often spread to nearby tissue or lymph nodes. Men are also often diagnosed with more advanced breast cancers because they fail to act quickly when noticing changes in their breast tissue. Although breast cancer is rare in men, if you notice any symptoms see your health care provider immediately.

Source: The American Cancer Society