What's Your Risk for Breast Cancer?

Amazing to me - and something I really didn't understand, is that there is nothing I could have done to avoid the most important risk factor for breast cancer.

Age is the most important risk. Simply the older a woman is, the greater her risk of developing the disease. Statistics from the US National Cancer Institute show that a woman's chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer by age is:

• From age 20 to age 30 . . . 1 in 2,000
• From age 30 to age 39 . . . 1 in 229
• From age 40 to age 49 . . . 1 in 68
• From age 50 to age 59 . . . 1 in 37
• From age 60 to age 69 . . . 1 in 26
• Ever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 in 8

"Ever" is lifetime risk. This means a woman has a one-in-eight chance of getting breast cancer after the age of 70

Comments

[christine]

I was in the 1 in 37 risk in 1999.
BTW, what is the difference between God and a doctor? God doesn't think he is a doctor.

[yndygo]

That 1-in-8 figure always staggers me.
In Vegas, 1-in-8 would be FANTASTIC odds toward your success... in this case, it's overwhelming odds that we will get it, or know so many women who do.

Again, in case I haven't said it lately? Thanks for putting a lovely, intelligent, witty, and candid face on this fight for so many of us.

((((hug)))))

[Susan Reynolds]

They are amazing odds, and yet I am the first woman in my family - mother, half-sister, 4 aunts, 2 grandmothers, 3 adult daughters, numerous female cousins - to have breast cancer.

Or in the past did we just not know that they had it when they died? My grandmothers would not have told us if they knew. And perhaps my aunts, all born before 1920, likely would not have either.

So perhaps it is that we now know people with breast cancer. And in knowing them - and in being able to talk to others out there who are eager to listen to the story - well truthfully we do not feel so alone.

[christine]

T.U., Susan, you are too kind. I was not really a candidate either: no family history, no really early menses, except that I never had children which I understand is a risk -- go figure. All I did do was take the pill for about 20 years and had a major heartbreak about 10 years b4 my diagnosis. Interesting to contemplate the emotional factor, I think. But never for too long. Let's plan a trip to Vegas together, Susan, when you're well so we can play those good odds.

[whymommy]

Two more for you:

80% of women with breast cancer have NO family history of it; and

The odds of a woman getting exactly the kinds of cancer that I have is 3 in a million... but I got them anyway.

I think that's why it's so important for ALL of us to know the signs of the different breast cancers and to see our doctor if ANYTHING changes in one breast but not the other!