Breast cancer is cancer of breast tissue. Worldwide, it is the most common form of cancer in females.

Epidemiology
The risk of getting breast cancer increases with age. For a woman who lives to the age of 90 the odds of getting breast cancer her entire lifetime is about 12.5% or 1 in 8. Men can also develop breast cancer, although their risk is less than 1 in 1000 (see sex and illness). This risk is modified by many different factors. In some families, there is a strong inherited familial risk of breast cancer. Some racial groups have a higher risk of developing breast cancer - notably, women of European and African descent have been noted to have a higher rate of breast cancer than women of Asian origin.

Other established risk factors include having no children, having the first child later, not breastfeeding, early menarche (the first menstrual period), late menopause and taking hormone replacement therapy.

The probability of breast cancer rises with age but breast cancer tends to be more aggressive when it occurs in younger women. One type of breast cancer that is especially aggressive and disproportionately occurs in younger women is Inflammatory Breast Cancer. It is initially Staged as Stage IIIb or Stage IV. It also is unique because it often does not present with a lump so that it often is not detected by mammography or ultrasound. It presents with the signs and symptoms of a breast infection like Mastitis.

Two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, have been linked to the familial form of breast cancer. Women in families expressing these genes have a much higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who do not.

Screening
Due to the high incidence of breast cancer among older women, screening is now recommended in many countries. Screening methods suggested include breast self-examination and mammography. Only mammography has been proven to reduce mortality from breast cancer. In some countries routine (annual) mammography of older women is encouraged as a screening method to diagnose early breast cancer.

At this stage mammography is still the modality of choice for screening of early breast cancer. It is the gold-standard for other imaging methods such as ultrasound, NMR-tomography and CT which are less useful due to their lower spatial resolution. CT by itself is nearly useless for breast cancer screening as NMR-tomography provides better resolution and quality (and costs much more).

Inflammatory Breast Cancer requires a biopsy to confirm diagnosis because it normally does not present with a distinct lump so that it usually is not detected by mammography or ultrasound. CT scans of the chest and abdomen are usually given to Inflammatory Breast Cancer patients to determine if metastasis has occurred since Inflammatory Breast Cancer is more likely to metastasize than other types of breast cancer. Please continue