Breast Cancer Awareness 2012

Instead of my favorites I wanted to begin the month of October with a short piece on breast cancer awareness.

The following are U.S. breast cancer statistics:

• About 1 in 8 U.S. women (just under 12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.
• In 2011, an estimated 230,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer were expected to be diagnosed in women in the U.S., along with 57,650 new cases of non-invasive (in situ) breast cancer.
• For women in the U.S., breast cancer death rates are higher than those for any other cancer, besides lung cancer.
• Besides skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women. Just under 30% of cancers in women are breast cancers.
• White women are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than African-American women. However, in women under 45, breast cancer is more common in African-American women than white women. Overall, African-American women are more likely to die of breast cancer. Asian, Hispanic, and Native-American women have a lower risk of developing and dying from breast cancer.
• In 2011, there were more than 2.6 million breast cancer survivors in the US.
• A woman’s risk of breast cancer approximately doubles if she has a first-degree relative (mother, sister, daughter) who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. About 15% of women who get breast cancer have a family member diagnosed with it.

My husband recently lost a female coworker to cancer and in talking about the situation he wondered if she was going for her regular check ups and exams. He asked me if I did the self exam at home and I had to be honest and say no. Once a year, when I'm at my GYN visit, is the only time I can recall doing a breast exam. That's just not good enough.

Women of a certain age or who have a history of breast cancer in their family need to perform regular self exams. When battling cancer time is not your friend. It's much better to discover it in the early stages and not when it has ravaged and spread throughout your entirebody.

Here's a quick diagram showing how to do an exam at home.

Let's all make a pledge to be more diligent about the self exams.