Last updated: 11/24/2009

The American Cancer Society estimated that in 2003, 211,300 new cases of breast cancer would be diagnosed in the United States and 39,800 women would die as a result of the disease. Approximately one in eight women will develop breast cancer at some...

point in her life. The risk of developing breast cancer increases with age: women aged 30 to 40 have a one in 252 chance of developing breast cancer; women aged 40 to 50 have a one in 68 chance; women aged 50 to 60 have a one in 35 chance; and women aged 60 to 70 have a one in 27 chance—and these statistics do not even account for genetic and environmental factors.

In the 1990s, the incidence of breast cancer was higher among white women (113.1 cases per 100,000 women) than African-American women (100.3 per 100,000). The death rate associated with breast cancer, however, was higher among African American women (29.6 per 100,000) than white women (22.2 per 100,000). Rates were lower among Hispanic women (14.2 per 100,000), American Indian women (12.0), and Asian women (11.2 per 100,000).