5 Things You Need to Know About Breast Cancer Right Now
Every 14 seconds, a woman somewhere in the world is diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s the most common cancer worldwide, with an estimated 2.3 million new cases each year. And rates have been slowly increasing over the past two decades. The good news is that death rates are dramatically decreasing—there’s been a 43 percent decline since 1989. This is in large part due to improvements in both detection and treatments, says Eric Winer, MD, director of Yale Cancer Center and president and physician-in-chief of Smilow Cancer Hospital.
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, here are five more timely facts:
1. At-home genetic tests for breast cancer are not always reliable
Direct to consumer genetic tests are everywhere, and they promise to reveal whether you’re at risk of developing a whole host of diseases, including breast cancer. But don’t count on them to sound the alarm or provide reassurance. “Most of the popular ancestry tests only check for three very specific breast cancer mutations in the BRCA1 and 2 genes that are common only in women of Ashkenazi Jewish descent,” says Joy Larsen Haidle, past president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. If that’s not your background, the test will be largely worthless because it misses up to 90 percent of all other mutations, she explains. As a result, you could be lulled into a false sense of security.
On the flip side, if you get a positive result, you could be propelled into an unnecessary state of panic. “Many women assume that if they test positive for a BRCA gene mutation, they’ll automatically get breast cancer,” says Haidle. But a large new study published this past September in the journal EClinicalMedicine found that while women who carry one of these gene mutations have a higher-than-average risk to develop breast cancer by the age of 60, it’s actually lower than previously thought—in some cases as low as 18 percent if there’s no other family history of the disease (the average lifetime risk for the general population is 13 percent).
The bottom line: If you’re concerned about your risk for breast cancer, talk to your doctor, advises Haidle. They can refer you to a genetic counselor who will take your family health history, advise whether or not genetic testing is appropriate, and—if you do get it—help you interpret the results so you don’t rush into preventative action that isn’t necessary.
2. Self exams are still essential
For decades, women were told to check their breasts every month (remember those shower cards your gym teacher handed out?). That changed in 2009, when the United States Preventive Services Task Force came out against the guideline, citing research that found that self-exams didn’t decrease deaths from breast cancer but did increase unnecessary breast biopsies and anxiety among women.
Breast cancer specialists beg to differ. “Many women do find their own cancers,” points out Maxine Jochelson, MD, chief of breast imaging services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In addition, a lot of women switch doctors frequently, which complicates things. “It’s good for women to know what their own breasts feel like, so they can tell a new provider if they feel something suspicious,” she adds. Jochelson recommends that you do it around the same time every month—usually about a week after your period, so that you aren’t thrown off by hormonal lumps and bumps.
3. Dense breasts require additional screening
If you’ve been told you have dense breasts but have never really understood how that impacts your health, here’s the gist: About 50 percent of women have dense breasts, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They’re more common in younger women, since breasts naturally become fattier with age. For unknown reasons, women with dense breasts have a higher chance of developing breast cancer. Their cancer can also be harder to detect on mammograms because dense breast tissue masks the disease.
Breast cancer isn’t more deadly among women with dense breasts, but extra vigilance is a must. The only way to tell whether you have dense breasts is to have a mammogram. If you do, you should still have an annual mammogram, but your doctor may also recommend one of the following tests:
Breast ultrasound: “This is widely available, relatively inexpensive, and finds about 3.5 additional cancers per 1,000 women,” notes Jochelson. “The problem is, they also often find a lot of things that aren’t cancer but look like it, so women end up having unnecessary biopsies.”
Breast MRI: “It picks up more cancers than an ultrasound—usually an additional 16 to 17 cancers per thousand, compared to just a mammogram,” explains Jochelson. But they’re very expensive, and typically not covered by insurance unless you are considered very high risk.
4. Black women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer at younger ages
While the actual rates of breast cancer are the same in Black women as in white women, Black women tend to develop the disease earlier and die at a faster rate, notes Oluchi Oke, MD, an oncologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. One big reason: “They are more likely to develop triple-negative breast cancer, which tends to be more aggressive, and have a worse prognosis,” she explains. Another reason is healthcare disparities. A 2021 study published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology found that Black women were at least twice as likely as white women to experience delays in getting a mammogram, which raised their risk of death. “One big barrier is lack of health insurance—we know Black women are more likely to be uninsured compared to white women,” explains Oke. “They may also have less access to mammograms, especially if there’s no health facility near them that offers one.”
If you don’t have health insurance, there are centers that offer low-cost or free mammograms. One option is the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (1-888-842-6355), which provides cancer screenings for women without health insurance.
5. Breast cancer rates may be on the rise in younger women
Rates of women under the age of 50 diagnosed with breast cancer rose slightly from 2010 to 2019, according to a 2023 study published in the journal JAMA Network Open. An increase in screening could be one explanation, says Winer. But late-stage breast cancer diagnoses in younger women under the age of 40 have been climbing by about 4 percent each year from 2000 to 2019, per the American Cancer Society. There are no clear-cut answers to explain this trend.
The good news: “We’ve developed newer and better treatments in the past five to 10 years to treat these types of fast-growing cancers,” says Winer. “The pace of scientific discovery keeps getting faster and faster. I’m optimistic that in the next five to 10 years, we’ll have even more groundbreaking treatments.”
You Might Also Like
