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What Are the Risk Factors for Breast Cancer?
Risk Factors You Cannot Change
Gender: Men can develop breast cancer, but this disease is about 100 times more common among women than men.
Aging: Your risk of developing breast cancer increases as you get older. About 18% of breast cancer diagnoses are among women in their 40's, while about 77% of women with breast cancer are older than 50 when they are diagnosed.
Genetic risk factors: Recent studies have shown that about five percent to ten percent of breast cancer cases are hereditary as a result of gene changes (mutations). Women with an inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation have up to an 80% chance of developing breast cancer during their lifetime.
Family history of breast cancer: Breast cancer risk is higher among women whose close blood relatives have this disease. Your risk of developing breast cancer is increased if:
- You have two or more relatives with breast or ovarian cancer. Breast cancer occurs before age 50 in a relative (mother, sister, grandmother or aunt) on either side of the family. The risk is higher if your mother or sister has a history of breast cancer. You have relatives with both breast and ovarian cancer You have one or more relatives with two cancers (breast and ovarian, or two different breast cancers) You have a male relative (or relatives) with breast cancer You have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.
- Your family history includes a history of diseases associated with hereditary breast cancer such as Li-Fraumeni or Cowdens Syndromes.
- Having one first-degree relative (mother, sister, or daughter) with breast cancer approximately doubles a woman's risk, and having two first-degree relatives increases her risk five-fold. Although the exact risk is not known, women with a family history of breast cancer in a father or brother also have an increased risk of breast cancer. Altogether, about 20% to 30% of women with breast cancer have a family member with this disease.
Race:White women are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than are African-American women. But African-American women are more likely to die of this cancer because their cancers are often diagnosed later and at an advanced stage when they are harder to treat and cure. There is also some evidence that African-American women have more aggressive tumors. Asian, Hispanic, and Native American women have a lower risk of developing breast cancer.
Previous abnormal breast biopsy: Women whose earlier breast biopsies detected certain types of changes have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer.
Previous breast radiation: Women who as children or young adults have had radiation therapy to the chest area as treatment for another cancer (such as Hodgkin disease or non-Hodgkin lymphoma) have a significantly increased risk for breast cancer.
Menstrual periods: Women who started menstruating at an early age (before age 12) or who went through menopause at a late age (after age 55) have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer.
Diethylstilbestrol (DES): In the 1940’s through the 1960’s some pregnant women were given diethylstilbestrol because it was thought to lower their chances of losing the baby. Recent studies have shown that these women have a slightly increased risk of developing breast cancer.
Lifestyle-related Factors and Breast Cancer Risk
Not having children:Women who have had no children or who had their first child after age 30 have a slightly higher breast cancer risk. Having multiple pregnancies and becoming pregnant at an early age reduces breast cancer risk.
Oral contraceptive use: It is still not certain what part oral contraceptives (birth control pills) might play in breast cancer risk. Studies have suggested that women using oral contraceptives have a slightly greater risk of breast cancer than women who have never used them. Women who stopped using oral contraceptives more than 10 years ago do not appear to have any increased breast cancer risk.
Hormone replacement therapy: It has become clear that long-term use (several years or more) of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause, particularly estrogens and progesterone combined increase your risk of breast cancer. They may also increase your chances of dying of breast cancer. The risk of HRT appears to apply only to current and recent users, and a woman's breast cancer risk seems to return to that of the general population within five years of stopping HRT.
Breastfeeding and pregnancy: Some studies suggest that breast- feeding may slightly lower breast cancer risk, especially if breast-feeding is continued for one and a half to two years.
Alcohol: Use of alcohol is clearly linked to a slightly increased risk of developing breast cancer. Compared with nondrinkers, women who consume one alcoholic drink a day have a very small increase in risk, and those who have two to five drinks daily have about one and a half times the risk of women who drink no alcohol.
Obesity and high-fat diets: Obesity (being overweight) has been found to be a breast cancer risk in all studies, especially for women after menopause.
Physical activity: Evidence is growing that exercise reduces breast cancer risk.
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