ABSTRACT
Breast cancer is the most common female malignancy in the Western world. In women aged 40-55, it is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the USA. There has been a slight decrease in the rates of breast cancer monality over the past several years, probably as a result of improvements in early detection and conventional therapies, especially new agents used for systemic chemotherapy. This decreased risk of death has been accompanied by an increased incidence of pre-invasive lesions, namely ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), largely the result of increased ability to find this disease early through appropriate screening mammography1•
Rates of development of breast cancer increase with increasing age. A female baby born today has a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer within her lifetime, according to statistics from the National Cancer Institute. Major risk factors for breast cancer are listed in Table 15.1. Epidemiologic studies show a wide variation of breast can-
Asian countries. Interestingly, this difference in risk is changed if a woman migrates to the West from Asia - i.e. her risk of breast cancer matches that of women born in the Western world. This points to possible modifiable risk factors such as nutrition, lifestyle and environmental exposures.
