Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Why Women Under 40 Should Pay More Attention to Their Breasts

Seattle, Washington – February 26, 2013 – A staggering discovery in the rising diagnosis of advanced breast cancer in women under the age of 40 was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This news awakens younger women to the idea that it is no longer a disease that solely affects one much later in life.

From 1976 to 2009, there has been a consistently observed 2% increase in diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer in women under 40.

For many years, physicians have advised self-breast exams until the age of 40 as a sufficient substitute for the more expensive, more evasive mammogram. With this unearthing however, it may be time to reconsider the target age population.

This discovery is crucial to the study of breast cancer. Dr. Johnson’s finding poses a serious problem for younger women. What is most concerning about a diagnosis discovered sooner than the age of 40, are more likely to have developed the more aggressive form of the disease and deal with lower survival rates.

“In previous research, she found that a woman younger than 40 had a 1 in 173 chance of developing breast cancer. For this study, she wanted to look specifically at advanced breast cancer within that same population” (Hagan 2013).

Along with the increase of younger women developing metastatic cancer, Dr. Johnson and her team were also able to calculate the average mean of new cases of young women developing the disease: 34.3 years in women aged between 25 to 39.

“There is no solid explanation for what's driving the increased incidence, but Johnson and her team suggest there's likely more than one cause” (Hagan 2013). Possible risk factors that enhance the likelihood of developing breast cancer are: age, race, family genealogy, predisposed conditions, breast tissue density, menstrual periods, and lifestyle choices.

There is hope yet, however. Now that the issue has been raised, more prevention strategies can be developed such as earlier screenings and mammograms. With this, an earlier detection can mean the difference between life and death.

Dr. Rebecca Johnson is the lead author of the study and is also the medical director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology program at Seattle Children's Hospital.

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Usagi Tsukino

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Caitlin Hagan. CNN Health. (2013). Metastatic breast cancer rising in patients younger than 40 [Press release]. Retrieved from http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/26/metastatic-breast-cancer-rising-in-patients-under-40/?iref=allsearch