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The elderly are also at an increased risk for breast cancer. Like prostate cancer, breast cancer has been a popular topic over the past few years, and more women than ever are educated about the disease. Still, it is one that often catches women by surprise. Women under 40 years of age do not develop breast cancer very often, but that risk rises gradually with age. Women 70 and older are at a very high risk for developing the disease. Some researchers suggest that seniors are more susceptible because the large number of changes going on in their bodies mean they develop abnormal cells more often.
Other risk factors include family history, height, breast density, and age of onset of menstruation. Some of the risk factors are controllable, including using birth control pills, drinking alcohol, and having a sedentary lifestyle, all of which put women at greater risk. Early research indicates that women’s risk decreases if they had children and if they breastfed those children.
Another factor that may put senior women at greater risk is the use of postmenopausal hormones. Many women opt to use the hormone treatments to control for problems they encounter after they reach menopause. Research now suggests, however, that these medications adversely affect the likelihood of developing breast cancer. Elderly women who wish to take menopausal hormones should ask their doctors about estrogen-only treatments instead of estrogen plus progestin treatments as the latter cause more problems in regards to breast cancer.
Early detection of breast cancer is crucial to helping stop the disease. All girls and women, beginning at menstruation, should perform self-exams monthly on their breasts. These exams can help women become familiar with the shape, size, and texture of their breasts so that they can inform their doctors if something changes in the tissues. Mammography is the next step in early detection of breast cancer. This test is an x-ray of the breast tissue and can alert doctors to any abnormalities that should be watched further. Women 40 and older should begin having mammograms done every other year, and by the age of 50, they should increase their visits to annually to help detect breast cancer before it is too late.
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