Breast cancer is the cancer that originates from the cells of the breast. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among females in the United States. Breast cancer is a major public health issue. Death due to breast cancer can be averted through early detection by regular mammogram screening.
Incidence of Cases
According to the American Cancer Society, there are about one quarter of million of new breast cancer cases every year. In the United States, a woman's life time risk of developing breast cancer is 12-13 percent, that is, one in every eight women will suffer from breast cancer. Roughly 90-95 percent of breast cancer cases are diagnosed at stage I and stage II.
Effects
Roughly 40,000 women die every year due to breast cancer. Breast cancer is among one of the main causes of deaths and accounts for 4-5 percent of deaths of women in the United States.
Breast cancer also leads to significant treatment costs. In California alone, Wendy (2006) estimated the cost of breast cancer treatment in 2001 to be roughly $300 million.
Race And Ethnicity
Race and ethnicity are important risk factors for breast cancer incidence and mortality. According to Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, white women have the highest rate of breast cancer diagnosis. Asian and Native American women have the lowest incidence rates of all. African American women tend to worse survival in comparison to other ethnic groups for the same cancer diagnosis.
Time Frame
The risk of developing breast cancer increases rapidly with age. The annual rate of breast cancer incidence increases from roughly 30 per 100,000 women at age 30 to 100 per 100,000 women at age 40, then to to roughly 500 per 100,000 women at age 75.
History
Breast cancer incidence has increased significantly between the 1980s and the early 2000s (Jamal et al., 2007). This increase is largely due to increase in use of screening mammograms for breast cancer and increase in use of combined hormone replacement therapy for treatment of symptoms associated with menopause.
In 2003, several studies indicated that use of combined hormone replacement therapy increases risk of breast cancer. This has led to a significant reduction in use of combined hormone replacement therapy among post-menopausal women and a subsequent decline in breast cancer incidence in recent years.
