Provided by the Young Survival Coalition (www.youngsurvival.org)

Despite the prevailing opinion that young women don’t get breast cancer, the reality is that they can and they do. In fact, one in every 227 women between the ages of 30 and 40 will be diagnosed with breast cancer within the next 10 years¹ . Following are some additional facts about breast cancer in young women:

• Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in young women ages 15–54².

• More than 11,500 women age 40 and under will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and close to 1,400 will die³.

• There are more than 250,000 women living in the United States age 40 and under who have been diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives.

• Young women’s cancers are generally more aggressive and result in lower survival rates.

• The five-year survival rate for young (pre-menopausal) women with breast cancer is 83 percent⁴, which is lower than their post-menopausal counterparts.

• Young women with breast cancer struggle with many issues that their post-menopausal counterparts do not face, including: the possibility of early menopause; pregnancy after diagnosis and treatment; generally more advanced cancers at diagnosis, and higher mortality rates.

• As the incidence of young women with breast cancer is much lower than in older women, young women are an underrepresented population in many research studies.

¹ NCI, SEER data updated 12/04
² National Cancer Institute 2004 Fact Book
³ American Cancer Society Breast Cancer Facts and Figures 2003–2004
⁴ Ibid.