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Breast Cancer - Know Your History to Determine Your Risk

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Breast cancer is a disease that affects both men and women alike. Although the disease itself most often occurs in women, men and children face the devastating consequences of this disease in their lives as well. Since one in eight, or thirteen percent of women, will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives, it is important to understand the risk factors for this disease.

Although many of these risk factors cannot be changed since they are genetically linked, knowing your personal risk level can help you be more vigilant in detecting the disease. Vigilance and early detection is the single biggest thing that you can do to fight breast cancer and survive.

Here are the items that are considered risk factors for breast cancer. Note that these are all genetic, non-controllable risk factors. There are also many environmental factors that can be easily controlled.

Significant family history of breast cancer. A significant history is defined as multiple female relatives that have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The risk is even greater if they were diagnosed at a very young age.
Prior occurrences of breast cancer. Unfortunately, having breast cancer once increases the odds that you will develop it a second time. That is why breast cancer survivors should never let their guard down with regards to screenings, mammograms and overall vigilance against this disease.
If your family has the "breast cancer gene". This is a gene that anyone can be tested for and the presence of it greatly increases the likelihood that you will develop breast cancer. Instead of seeing it as a death sentence, think of it as a gift. You know that you are at risk and by doing regular screenings and mammograms you will catch it early enough to stop the damage in its tracks.
If your family has a history of other types of cancers such as ovarian, colon or pancreatic cancer. These cancers are all linked very closely to breast cancer.
Young women who have had Hodgkin's disease are also at a greater risk of developing breast cancer later on in life.

Breast cancer is no longer the death sentence that it once was. The survival rate for patients diagnosed with breast cancer has been increasing steadily over the past 20 years. In fact, 86 percent of women diagnosed with some form of breast cancer survive five years and 76 percent survive ten years.