The precise cause or causes of breast cancer remain unknown.
While we do not yet know precisely what causes breast cancer we do understand that definite risk factors are connected to the disease.
A risk factor is something that has an effect on a person's possibility of getting a disease like cancer.
Different cancers contain different risk factors.
A number of risk factors, like smoking, drinking, and diet are connected to matters a person does.
Others, such as a person's age, race, or family history, can't be altered.
But risk factors don't inform us the whole thing.
Having a risk factor, or even some, doesn't signify that a person will get the disease.
A number of women who have one or more risk factors never suffer breast cancer.
The risk of breast cancer rises with age.
For instance, yearly breast cancer rates are 8-fold higher in women who are 50 years old, vis-à-vis women who are 30.
The majority breast cancers (roughly 80%) grow in women over the age of 50.
In one age group (40 to 45 years), it is positioned first amongst the entire causes of death in women.
It is unusual in women younger than 35, with the exception of those who have a family record of the disease.
In the majority cases, it isn't obvious what causes normal breast cells to turn out to be cancerous.
Doctors do understand that merely 5 percent to 10 percent of breast cancers are hereditary.
Families that do have genetic defects in one of two genes, breast cancer gene 1 (BRCA1) or gene 2 (BRCA2), possess a much greater risk of growing both breast and ovarian cancer.
Examiners are at present attempting to find out whether a connection is real between a person's genetic structure and environmental factors that might augment the risk of breast cancer.
It ultimately might show to have many causes.