Dwi Susilo

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Breast Cancer

Written by madmax

Tuesday, 11 January 2011 00:00

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women, and the second most common cancer in North America. The majority of cases occur in women over 50, and as with most cancers, the risk of developing breast cancer increases with age. An American woman who lives to age 90 has a one in eight chance of developing breast cancer. Breast cancer strikes men as well as women, but male breast cancer accounts for less than 1 percent of all breast cancer cases. Cancer researchers have found that approximately 5 percent of all breast cancer cases are associated with inherited mutations in genes such as BRCA1, BRCA2, and p53. The protein HER-2 (also called HER2/neu), produced by oncogenes, is present in about one-third of all breast cancers. Other risk factors include a family history of the disease, early onset of menstruation, late menopause, never having children, or having a first child after age 30, conditions that extend the duration of estrogen exposure in the body. In 2006 researchers reported a 7 percent decrease of the incidence of breast cancer in the United States from 2002 to 2003. They attributed this decrease to declining use of hormone replacement therapy, which many women took to lessen the effects of menopause. A study linking HRT with an increased risk of breast cancer, reported in 2002, caused many women to stop using the therapy. Most breast cancers are first detected as an unusual mass or lump in the breast. If the cancer is detected and treated early, the odds of recovering from breast cancer are extremely good.