Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American women today.
Furthermore, it is estimated that 182,000 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 46,000 will die of the disease this year. With these statistics regularly in the media, women may look at their own personal situations and wonder about their chances of developing the disease, says Jennifer Osborn, MD , medical oncologist at UPMC Passavant. As women age, their risk of developing breast cancer increases. Some women who carry the recently identified breast cancer gene have an 85 percent chance of developing breast cancer throughout life. A woman who has her first child after age 30 or who has no children has a slightly increased lifetime risk of breast cancer.