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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Researchers found a benign breast disease (BBD), known as atypical hyperplasia, can significantly increase a young womans risk of developing breast cancer even if there is no breast cancer history in her family.
Those diagnosed with atypical hyperplasia, a precancerous condition of the breast tissue, have a six-times greater risk of developing breast cancer than women without the disease.
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Researchers also examined the lifetime breast cancer risk of two other BBDs: non-proliferative BBD and proliferative without atypia. They found these women were at a much lower risk than women with atypical hyperplasia, but not completely out of the woods. Non-proliferative BBD increased breast cancer risk 1.2 times higher than normal, while proliferative without atypia doubled a patients risk.
"Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women age 25 to 49, and these young patients also have worse overall survival and increased risk of cancer coming back compared to older women, so it is important that we try to understand how the cancer develops and the measures that help prevent it," Karthik Ghosh, M.D., the studys lead investigator, was quoted as saying.
Study authors also report a slight decrease in breast cancer risk with complete lobular involution treatment in women with BBDs. Dr. Ghosh said future studies should be done examining the promotion of lobular involution as a means to reduce breast cancer risk. Researchers report the average age of BBD diagnosis was 39 years.
SOURCE: Presented at the Cancer Therapy and Research Center-American Association for Cancer Researchs Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Texas, Dec. 14, 2008
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