The Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Last Modified: February 28, 2013 Many women can identify someone
they know who has had breast cancer. It is, after all, one of
the most common cancers in women. You often hear the statistic
of 1 in 8 women developing breast cancer in their lifetime, but
what does that really mean? You can think of it as a 12%
lifetime risk, so 12 out of 100 women can be expected to develop
the disease in their lifetime – which means the other 88 women
will not. Men are also at risk for developing breast cancer,
although this risk is much lower than it is for women and we
will not discuss male risk in this article. Many factors play
into your personal risk of developing breast cancer. These
include family history, reproductive history, diet, alcohol use,
weight, hormone use and radiation exposure. As you can see, some
risk factors are modifiable, meaning you can change them (i.e.
diet, alcohol use). Others are nonmodifiable, such as family
history or an early menarch