Breast cancer

Breast Cancer: Definition, Causes, Prevalence & Risk Factors

What is Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer (medically: mammary carcinoma) is the most common tumor in women. Rarely, the disease also occurs in men. Breast cancer is a very serious condition, but with timely detection and treatment, many patients are now curable—often with gentle methods.

Therapy is individually tailored depending on the severity of the disease and the patient's condition. Available and frequently combined therapies include surgery, specific medications, and radiation therapy.

Recently, so-called targeted therapies have also been added, which precisely attack cancer cells (e.g., monoclonal antibodies).

How Common is Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Germany: in Germany, breast cancer accounts for approximately 28% of all new cancer diagnoses in women.

The risk of breast cancer increases with age: younger women are rarely affected; the majority of women develop the disease from the age of 40, and especially from the age of 50. Most patients develop the disease after menopause.

What are the Causes and Risk Factors for Breast Cancer?

The exact causes of breast cancer are still largely unknown. However, several risk factors are known—i.e., influences that promote the development of breast cancer. The extent to which these factors influence each other is still poorly understood, as is their interaction with other factors such as age. It should also be noted that some factors can be influenced, while others cannot. Here are the most important risk factors:

Obese women develop breast cancer more frequently than women of normal weight. Excess body weight appears to increase the risk mainly after menopause. Those who consume a lot of animal fats also seem to have a higher risk of breast cancer. Whether other dietary habits increase the risk is still unclear. This includes questions about whether fruits and vegetables have a protective effect or what effect natural phytoestrogens (plant hormones in foods) have.
It is certain, however, that alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer. The more alcohol consumed, the higher the risk.
Smoking appears to increase the risk. Smoking at all ages increases not only the risk of breast cancer but also, and especially, the risk of lung cancer.
Sex hormones such as estrogen and progestogen can influence the risk of breast cancer. Long-term use of the pill, for example, can slightly increase the risk of breast cancer. At the same time, this hormonal form of contraception offers statistically somewhat greater protection against other types of cancer, such as ovarian cancer.
Continuous, long-term hormone replacement therapy during menopause (postmenopausal estrogen therapy) increases the risk of breast cancer. However, when hormone therapy is discontinued, the risk returns to average levels within a few years.
A late growth spurt in adolescence and late onset of menopause (climacteric with subsequent menopause) increase the risk.
Women who have not had children or those who were over 30 years old when their first child was born also have a higher risk. Each pregnancy or birth has a protective effect. Breastfeeding also has a protective effect—the longer the breastfeeding, the greater the protection.
In about 10% of all breast cancer cases, genes play a significant role: a first (but by no means sufficient) indication of a genetically increased breast cancer risk can be a clustering of breast and ovarian cancer cases in the family.

What are NOT Risk Factors for Breast Cancer?

The media repeatedly mentions alleged risk factors for breast cancer, for which NO scientific link to this disease has been proven. These include:

Wearing bras
Vitamin D deficiency
Lack of sun exposure
Infections
Breast implants
Abortions
Aluminium containing deodorants.

However, research has not yet identified all risk factors for breast cancer.