Breast cancer is more common in older adults. At age 30, a woman’s risk of getting the disease is 1 in 227. By age 60, a woman has a 1 in 28 chance of receiving this diagnosis. Although the odds are much lower for younger women, they can and do get breast cancer. More than 13,000 women ages 40 or under will be diagnosed this year.
When breast cancer is diagnosed at a young age, it’s more likely to be aggressive and to spread quickly. Young women may not get a diagnosis right away because many organizations don’t recommend regular mammogram screenings until age 45 or 50. It’s also harder for doctors to find breast cancer in young women than in older women because younger women have denser breasts. This means that they have more breast tissue than fat tissue. Tumors don’t show up as well on mammograms in women with dense breasts.
Read on to learn about some of the unique challenges young women with breast cancer face and what to do if you’ve been diagnosed.
