What kinds of women are at high risk for breast cancer?
Dr. Eisen: A woman can be at high risk based on a number of factors. One can be family history and in general to really increase your risk of breast cancer you need a fairly strong family history. These are the women, a small sub-category, who have more than two women in their family with breast cancer or ovarian cancer diagnosed at a very early age. Most women don’t have that kind of history, that only accounts for about 5 percent of breast cancer cases. Women who have a mother or a sister or an aunt with breast cancer have a slightly increased risk but it’s not the high risk that we see in those special hereditary types. Then you can have an increased risk of breast cancer based on age. The incidence of breast cancer goes up as we get older. In fact, the median age of diagnosis in Canada and in the United States is around age 60 or 61. You can have an increased risk of breast cancer based on certain pathologic features. So if you’ve ever had a biopsy of your breast that showed someth
