Breast cancer

Original text of article without medical contributor....leave my edits out please.PalMD^talk 12:38, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women, and the most fatal after lung cancer. The number of cases has significantly increased since the 1970s. Although it is far less common in men, breast cancer can also affect them.

Risk factors

Many factors affect the incidence of breast cancer in any given population of women including:

• diet
• racial grouping,
• obesity
• family history if such a history involves having several generations affected by breast cancer or having many relatives diagnosed with breast cancer at less than 50 years old
• prolonged uninterrupted exposure to estrogen (e.g. by having an early menarche and late menopause or by having no full-term pregnancies).
• age: increasing age increases the risk that at some point in her life a woman will contract breast cancer, rising from 1 in 231 (0.5% risk) aged under 40 to 1 in 7 at age 90.

This concept of risk should be put into the context of other risks, since life is full of risks. A woman's risk of dying of breast cancer is similar to her risk from radon by living in Cornwall, England, a factor which does not seem to have denuded Cornwall of its female population.

The National Breast Cancer Coalition does not endorse the view that induced abortions increase the risk of breast cancer. Nor do the American Cancer Society and the World Health Organisation endorse this view. This would seem to be borne out by the experience of the Republic of Ireland, where abortion is illegal, and yet it has one of the highest rates of both breast cancer incidence and mortality in the EU.

A higher risk factor for breast cancer than abortion, recent research reveals, is the eating of red meat.

Ways of reducing the risk

Having children reduces the risk of breast cancer. If a woman breastfeeds her babies she greatly reduces her risk of breast cancer.

Maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy diet reduces the risk.

Breast self-examination carried out every month, ideally one week after beginning a menstrual period, is a common-sense measure to aid early detection of suspicious changes. For women over the age of 40, mammogram screenings are another measure that can detect cancer earlier, when it is easier to treat. However, not all medical authorities agree on whether there is any benefit from having annual mammograms below the age of 50.