Information on breast cancer prevention for women under 40

Courtesy of Prevention

Randi Rosenberg's gynecologist was sure she didn't have breast cancer. She was so sure that, despite the lump she'd found in Rosenberg's breast, she advised against a mammogram.

"My OB/GYN said, 'Young women usually have lumpy breasts; I wouldn't worry about it,'" recalls Rosenberg, then 31. So Rosenberg didn't worry about it. Not until 6 months later, that is, when she saw a general practitioner for a routine physical. After feeling the lump, he ordered an immediate mammogram - even escorting Rosenberg down the hall to the radiologist.

The mammogram showed nothing amiss. But the astute doctor, aware that mammography is more likely to miss abnormalities in young women's breasts because their breast tissue is denser than older women's, ordered a follow-up sonogram. It found cancer, but almost a full year had passed since the lump was originally discovered.

Every year, 9,500 American women who, like Rosenberg, are 40 or younger are diagnosed with breast cancer. And about 1,100 die of it. Breast cancer appears to be more aggressive in younger than older women. It's the leading cause of cancer death in women under 40.

"I was lucky; many young women who go a full year without a diagnosis don't find their aggressive cancers still confined to their breast," says the now 41-year-old Rosenberg, who heads her own marketing and consulting firm in New York City and co-founded and serves on the Board of Directors of the Young Survival Coalition (YSC), an international nonprofit organization for young women with breast cancer.

The YSC Web site, YoungSurvival.org, includes information on breast cancer among young women, advice on getting top-notch care, and bulletin boards aimed at creating a sense of community for young women with the disease. Members talk about the prevalence of breast cancer among young women to school groups and young professionals. They attend major medical meetings, among other things, to raise awareness among doctors that young women do, in fact, get breast cancer.