Risk Factors

Surgery to remove the healthy ovaries and fallopian tubes reduces the risk of breast cancer in women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation in the first 5 years after surgery. The age at which a woman has the surgery seems to affect risk reduction more in women with a BRCA1 mutation than in women with a BRCA2 mutation.

Compared to people not diagnosed with cancer, people who have been diagnosed with cancer have a higher risk of being infected with COVID-19 and having more severe complications if they are infected.

Women with a higher-than-average risk of breast cancer face barriers to preventive care because of financial concerns, even when they have health insurance.

If a woman has been diagnosed with breast cancer, her risk of being diagnosed with a second primary cancer increases as her weight increases.

Women diagnosed with MS and breast cancer have about the same risk of dying from breast cancer as women diagnosed with only breast cancer, but women with MS and breast cancer are more likely to die from any cause than women diagnosed with only breast cancer.

Medicines commonly used to stimulate the ovaries to release eggs during fertility treatment don’t seem to increase the risk of developing breast cancer.

Women with a mutation in the BRCA1 gene likely have fewer eggs in their ovaries than the average woman, which may shorten their window of opportunity to have children.

A new study shows that women who smoked and got radiation therapy to treat breast cancer had a much higher risk of lung cancer later on compared to women who got radiation and didn't smoke.

Research shows that women with an abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene who've been diagnosed with breast cancer have a higher risk of being diagnosed with a new, different cancer in the opposite breast compared to women without an abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene.

Research suggests that women with an abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene who are first diagnosed younger than age 41 have nearly double the contralateral breast cancer risk of similar women diagnosed when they're age 41 to 49.

Women who did 5 hours of moderate exercise per week before being diagnosed with breast cancer were much less likely to have heart problems after treatment compared to women who exercised for less time.

A study suggests that a woman's risk of breast and ovarian cancer may vary depending on the type of mutation a woman has and where the mutation is located on the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene.

From 2000 to 2010, use of CT scans increased dramatically and a study suggests that more CT scans may lead to a higher risk of breast cancer in women, especially young women who have repeat scans.

Benign breast disease increases a woman's risk of breast cancer; the size of the increase depends on the pathology of the benign disease and family breast cancer history.

A new study suggests that black cohosh may possibly reduce breast cancer risk.

Genetics of individual breast cancers may account for differences in diagnosis by race.

Folate has important benefits for health and preventing birth defects, but there is no research that shows that it reduces breast cancer risk.

Women with ATM, CHEK2, or PALB2 mutations may benefit from starting annual breast cancer screening with MRI between the ages and 30 to 35 and an annual MRI and mammogram starting at age 40.

New research suggests that having mammograms twice per year after lumpectomy finds a cancer recurrence (or a new cancer) earlier than only one mammogram per year after surgery.

Many women treated for childhood cancer with chest radiation therapy aren't getting recommended breast cancer screening.

A new study provides more evidence that there seems to be no link between caffeine and breast cancer risk.

Postmenopausal women who exercised regularly in the last 4 years had a lower risk of breast cancer than women who exercised less during that time; women who had exercised regularly between 5 and 9 years earlier but were less active in the past 4 years didn't have a lower risk of breast cancer.

Research suggests that only about half of women with dense breasts have a higher-than-average risk of breast cancer.

Breastcancer.org Professional Advisory Board member calls for breast cancer prevention to start in girlhood.