One out of every nine will develop breast cancer some time during her life. Breast cancer statistics remain dim with an estimated 43,900 deaths and approximately 178,700 new diagnoses in 1998.
Breast cancer is the second major cause of cancer death among women.
While breast cancer is rare in women under 30, it has an increasing incidence with age. Early detection currently offers one important prospect for improving this outcome. The development of x-ray mammography over the past two decades has provided an important adjunct to the physician's physical examination. Its value in detecting early breast cancers has become widely accepted. The same kind of equipment used to image broken bones and the same kind of film used for industrial purposes was employed to visualize very low contrast breast tumors.