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Assess Your True Risk of Breast Cancer

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Li Liu, MD
Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Last Modified: November 1, 2001

Author: Patricia T. Kelly, PhD Publisher: Owl Books ISBN: 0805064680 OncoLink Rating:

In the United States, a woman's lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is 10% by the age of 70 years. More than 180,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer are diagnosed each year, and more than 43,000 women die from this disease annually. The risk factors for breast cancer are very complex, and include environmental, hormonal, and genetic factors. Women are oftentimes overwhelmed by conflicting information about these risks.

Recent developments in the ability to predict and alter breast-cancer risk warrant a new look at the role of risk assessment. Several important medical decisions may be affected by a woman's underlying risk of breast cancer.

Assess Your True Risk of Breast Cancer is written by Dr. Patricia T. Kelly, a medical geneticist who specializes in cancer risk assessment and counseling. In this well written book, Dr. Kelly provides readers timely and welcomed information for individual risk assessment. It certainly will help women make informed decisions regarding the use of postmenopausal hormone-replacement therapy, the age to begin mammographic screening, the use of tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer, and prophylactic mastectomy to prevent breast cancer.

OncoLink highly recommends this book.