This week's artwork was donated by Dathan, a pediatric cancer patient who received treatment at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . This question and answer session was originally conducted on America Online. There have been a huge amount of breast cancer cases in my area. There are no known environmental causes for breast cancer. There are no known dietary causes for breast cancer, except for excessive alcohol intake.
Many women have breast lumps that simply represent collections of various types of benign tissue.
Your breasts simply need regular examination to see if these lumps change. Your risk profile tells me that there are many reasons that hormone replacement therapy is a good idea. In general, the increased risk of breast cancer in women taking HRT is small and should not influence your decision to keep taking it. However, you should talk with your doctor about the potential benefits and risks of HRT as they apply to your particular situation. Exposure to the radiation from a mammogram is minimal and is not known to produce any problems of its own.