Estimating Breast Cancer Risk
July 20, 2008
External and internal environment. External environment is food, water, pollution, sound noise, smoke etc. Internal environment is hereditary genes, hormones, stress. Hereditary risk it has been known that woman whose sister and mother had breast cancer have a more chances to develop the breast cancer when a women inherits a susceptible gene from her parents.
Risk of breast cancer also increases with age. This is also one of the factor which a person can not control. If some gene changes are running in a family that means if the breast cancer is hereditary the chance of getting affected automatically increases without any control on it. If a woman is having cancer in one breast the chance of getting cancer in another breast or in another part of same breast increases. White women are at high risk of breast cancer than Asian women.
A history of breast cancer also leaves women at a greater risk of developing the same cancer. This happens when the cancer cells spread to the lymph glands. There is a great risk that the cancer will develop in the opposite breast. When breast conservation therapy is used as treatment for the cancer, there is a risk of cancer redeveloping in the same breast.
Some hormonal factors increase the risk of breast cancer. A woman who started her menstrual period before the age of 12 has a slightly increased risk of developing breast cancer. This is also true of women that have menopause after 55, women who have a first child after age 30, and women that have never had children.
Do a mammogram after age of 40. Women whose mammograms show many dense areas of tissue have an increased risk of breast cancer compared to women whose mammograms reveal mainly fat tissue. A woman who is told that her mammogram has areas of increased density should ask her health care provider to explain what this means.
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