A woman in the United States and Canada has a 12 percent, or one in nine, lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. Mammograms are 90 percent effective in early detection of breast cancer. Excluding skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. One in nine women will get breast cancer in her lifetime. Nearly 97 percent of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer at an early stage survive for more than five years.
Men can get breast cancer, although it is very rare.
About 5-10 percent of all breast cancers are inherited. Children can inherit an altered breast cancer susceptibility gene from either their mother or father. In the 1990s, the breast cancer death rate declined by the largest amount in over 65 years. Women under the age of 40 account for only 5 percent of breast cancer cases. Over 75 percent of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer are age 50 or older.