Breast Cancer

Q. How common is breast cancer?

A. There are over 212,000 cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the USA each year. In Canada the figure is 20,500, Australia 13,000 and in the UK the figure is 41,000. Overall, one woman in every nine will get breast cancer at some time in her life.

Q. Who is most at risk?

A. Breast cancer is overwhelmingly a female disease, but about 1% of cases occur in men (around 300 per year in the UK). Amongst women it becomes more common as age increases. More than 80% of cases occur in women over 50. Taking the contraceptive pill slightly increases the risk. Taking hormone replacement therapy significantly increases your risk somewhat more, but the health benefits derived from hormone replacement are better overall. Obesity and heavy drinking also significantly increase the risk.

If one or more relatives have had breast cancer, this also increases your risk of developing it (see below).

Q. Does breast cancer run in families?

A. Having one close relative (mother or sister) with breast cancer doubles your risk of getting breast cancer, when compared to women with no cases in the family. Having two close relatives affected increases your risk further.

There are a very few families in which breast cancer is very common - ie four or more cases. Most of these families carry faulty versions of the 'BRCA' breast cancer genes. Women with a faulty BRCA gene have a 50% to 80% chance of getting breast cancer. Testing for faulty BRCA genes is available on the NHS.

Q. Is the use of deodorants linked to breast cancer?

A. There has been a persistent internet rumour that underarm deodorants cause breast cancer and even one or two newspaper articles that suggested this was backed up by research findings. However, there is no good evidence from cancer research to support this idea. On the contrary: in a large study comparing breast cancer patients and healthy women, there was no difference found at all in their use of underarm deodorants.