Breast Health Home Page
Routine care is the best way to keep you and your breasts healthy. Although detecting breast cancer at its earliest stages is the main goal of routine breast care, other benign conditions, such as fibrocystic breasts or cysts, are often discovered during routine care.
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer.
According to the National Cancer Institute, when breast cancer is found early and is still localized (restricted to the site of origin, without evidence of spread), the relative survival rate, when measured at five years, is 97 percent. When breast cancer is found at a regional stage (cancer that has grown beyond the original, or primary, tumor to nearby lymph nodes or organs and tissues), the survival rate at five years is 87 percent.
Although the incidence of breast cancer is increasing, with one out of eight women developing breast cancer, mortality rates have remained fairly stable over the past several years due to early detection and improved treatment.
If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, the most important thing for you to remember is that it is not a hopeless condition. Early detection and modern therapy with a combination of surgery, radiation, drugs, or hormones can help many patients.
Email this link
Print this page