Risk Factors for Breast Cancer

What is a risk factor?

A risk factor is anything that may increase a person's chance of developing a disease. It may be an activity, such as smoking, diet, family history, or many other things. Different diseases, including cancers, have different risk factors.

Knowing your risk factors to any disease can help to guide you into the appropriate actions, including changing behaviors and being clinically monitored for the disease.

What are the risk factors for breast cancer?

Any woman may develop breast cancer. However, the following risk factors may increase the likelihood of developing the disease.

1. Risk factors that cannot be changed:

• gender
  Breast cancer occurs nearly 100 times more often in women than in men.

• aging
  A majority of cases occur after age 50.

• personal history of breast cancer

• previous breast irradiation

• family history and genetic factors
  Having a close relative, such as a mother or sister, with breast cancer increases the risk. This includes changes in certain genes such as BRCA1, BRCA2, and others. 

• benign breast disease

• previous breast biopsy in which the tissue showed atypical hyperplasia

• menstrual periods that began early in life

• menopause began later in life

2. The most frequently cited lifestyle-related risk factors:

• smoking
  
  
• not having children, or first child after age 30
  
  
• oral contraceptives
  
  
• obesity and a high-fat diet
  
  
• physical inactivity
  
  
• alcohol
  
  
• long-term, post-menopausal use of combined estrogen and progestin (HRT)
  
  
• weight gain and obesity after menopause
  

3. Environmental risk factors:

• Exposure to pesticides, or other chemicals, is currently being examined as a possible risk factor.
  

Estrogen replacement therapy and breast cancer:

The safe use of estrogen replacement therapy, also known as hormone replacement therapy, has long been a topic of debate among medical experts. Estrogen replacement therapy is widely used among women during menopause to reduce the common symptoms associated with menopause. During the summer of 2002, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) halted a major clinical trial of the risks and benefits of combined estrogen and progestin in healthy menopausal women, due to findings of an increased risk of invasive breast cancer among its participants. The trial also found increases in risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and pulmonary embolism. The study was scheduled to run until 2005.

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