Cases of advanced breast cancer inching up in young women: US study
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NEW YORK (REUTERS) - More young women are being diagnosed with advanced, metastatic breast cancer than three decades ago, according to a US study, with the metastatic breast cancer rate in particular rising about two per cent each year.
Yet the overall rate of cancers in that group is still small. One in 173 women will develop breast cancer before she turns 40, said researchers whose report appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association .
But the prognosis tends to be worse for younger patients.
The study, led by Dr Rebecca Johnson at Seattle Children's Hospital and University of Washington, found that the rate of metastatic breast cancer in particular rose about two per cent each year among younger women between 1976 and 2009.
