What Could Raise Your Risk of Getting Breast Cancer?

Please Bookmark:

Breast cancer is cancer arising in breast tissue. Breast Cancer is about abnormal cells in and around breast having abnormal growth patterns.

Breast cancer usually infects women but 1% of men also get it. Death rates due to breast cancer have reasonably declined due to increased awareness as well as screening and improved treatment methods.

There are many types of breast cancer. Ductal cancer, lobular cancer, inflammatory breast cancer, medullary cancer, phyllodes tumor, angiosarcoma, mucinous (colloid) carcinoma, and mixed tumors. When cancers spread into the surrounding tissues, they are termed infiltrating cancers.

Breast cancer can also be metastatic. Metastatic cancers mean they can spread to other places from the place of their origin. Common sites for breast cancer to metastasize are under the arms into the lymph nodes or above the collarbone. In exceptional cases it can also spread in brain, the liver, and the bones.

Coming to the risk factors that can raise one’s chances of getting breast cancer are:

Gender undoubtedly is the biggest risk. If you are a woman you are much more likely to get breast cancer than men.

Age is another such factor. One can be diagnosed with breast cancer anytime in their life. Women carry breast cancer risk that lasts their entire lifetime. But they are more likely or at risk as the age increases.

Chances of white women to develop breast cancer are more than that of African American women in the U.S.

Woman with a personal history of cancer in one breast are at three to four times greater risk of cancer in the other breast or in other part of the same breast, which was earlier, treated for breast cancer. A new tumor may develop and not necessarily the old one may return.

There could be genetic causes, hormonal causes like menopause, having child before thirty, use of oral contraceptives, not having children at all, dietary and lifestyle causes like high dietary intake of fat, and being overweight or obese is a known risk factor for breast cancer, especially in postmenopausal women can also lead to breast cancer. Radiation treatment can also increase one’s chances of getting breast cancer.