Breast Cancer Page
Breast Cancer Page
Breast Cancer is common: Since 2002, cancer has been the leading cause of death in US adults under 85 years old, and breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women accounting for 31% of all cancers.
In 2005 alone, there were an estimated 200,000+ new breast cancer cases diagnosed in the US and 41,000 deaths from breast cancer second only to lung cancer.
Who is going to develop breast cancer? it is a tough question. Although there are risk models for breast cancer, they are not very specific for individual women. The most widely used breast cancer risk model, the Gail model, was developed in the late 1980s to estimate the probability of a woman being diagnosed with invasive breast cancer within the next five years. The Gail model uses risk factors known at that time including current age, age at menarche, age at birth of first child, first-degree relatives with breast cancer, and the number of previous biopsies. The model has been validated in separate datasets but offers only fair predictive accuracy and calibration.
Want to know your 5-year breast cancer risk as calculated using the Gail model? Click HERE
Another model was published in 2005 (Barlow et al.) that separated risk predictions for pre- and post-menopausal women and added additional risk factors: BMI and breast density. This five-year study comprised more than 2 million screening observations collected from the National Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC). The Barlow and Gail models showed similar results for low-risk women. However, the high-risk women in the Barlow model were at much higher risk than women in the Gail model, most likely because of the addition of breast density and body mass index (BMI) to the model.
Major Risk Factors for breast cancer:
Menopause Age
Menopause Type
Alcohol
Benign Breast Disease
Breast density
Family History of breast cancer
Post menopausal hormone use
Weight
Weight gain
Preventions for Breast Cancer
Tamoxifen
Raloxifene
Lasoloxifen
Green Tea
Weight Loss
Mastetomy