Five Important Breast Cancer Facts

While the threat posed by breast cancer is well understood by the general public, there are plenty of facts regarding this disease that are less well known:

  1. There are over 2.5 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States.
  2. Genes certainly play a role in breast cancer risk, but they are hardly the only factor. In fact, 85 percent of those diagnosed with this condition have no family history of this disease.
  3. Men get breast cancer too; approximately 2,100 men develop this form of cancer annually, and 450 will succumb to it.
  4. Breast cancer risk is also closely linked with age. The American Cancer Society notes that a women’s odds of developing breast cancer is 1 in 69 at age 40, 1 in 42 at 50, 1 in 29 at 60, and 1 in 27 at 70.
  5. Believe or not, most lumps that form on breasts are benign and not indicative of cancer. The National Breast Cancer
    Foundation estimates that 80 percent of such lumps are harmless.

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