Breast cancer is the most common cancer in a woman over the world with over million new cases detected every year. A family history of breast cancer, early puberty, late menopause, and genetic mutations can be risk factors for breast cancer.
Dr Vincent Vinh-Hung, of University Hospital in Brussels, states that younger woman have poorer chances of survival from the disease than their counterparts who are older than 45 yrs of age. According to researchers and scientists on thursday younger women under 45 years of age diagnosed with early breast cancer have a higher risk of dying from the disease than older patients.Most are in women over 50, the disease is rare in young women. The doctor also says that although only a small fraction of early breast cancers occur in young women,they account for a disproportionate percentage of deaths. According to a study submitted by the doctor and colleagues at the 5th European Breast Cancer Conference in Nice, France,they that the odds of dying from breast cancer rose by 5 percent for every year that a woman was under 45 when diagnosed.The studies were mainly focused on woman whose cancer was less than 2cm in size and had yet to spread.
Initially doctors always felt the poor prognosis was due to the failure of the cancer being diagnosed until much later in age. This they felt could be because the breast tissue in younger people is more dense thereby making the detection of a lump much more difficult. Also due to the lack of awareness in younger women, ignoring the lump thinking it to be harmless, or that they are too young for breast cancer.
But Dr Vinh-hung feels that based on the study, the findings suggest that in young women, age is a very important factor affecting the chances of survival. He and his team suspect that there may be some kind of unknown genetic damage that may increase the chances of developing he disease much earlier, and also contributes to the poor prognosis in younger patients.
