Breast cancer on the rise in young American women: study

The incidence of advanced breast cancer among young women in the US, ages 25 to 39, has increased slightly over the last thirty years, a new study has claimed.
The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that advanced cases climbed to 2.9 per 100,000 younger women in 2009, from 1.53 per 100,000 women in 1976 - an increase of 1.37 cases per 100,000 women in 34 years.
The totals were about 250 such cases per year in the mid-1970s, and more than 800 per year in 2009.
Though small, the increase was statistically significant, and the researchers said it was worrisome because it involved cancer that had already spread to organs like the liver or lungs by the time it was diagnosed, the New York Times reported.

However, more research is needed to verify the finding, which was based on an analysis of statistics, the study's authors noted. The researchers could not determine what may have caused the apparent increase in breast cancer cases among young women.
"Breast cancer can and does occur in younger women," said Dr Rebecca H Johnson, the first author of the study and medical director of the adolescent and young adult oncology program at Seattle Children's Hospital.

Johnson said that there is no evidence that screening helps younger women who have an average risk for the disease and no symptoms.
"We're certainly not advocating that young women get mammography at an earlier age than is generally specified," she said.

The researchers analysed data from SEER, a programme run by the National Cancer Institute to collect cancer statistics on 28 per cent of the population of the United States.
The study is based on information from 936,497 women who had breast cancer from 1976 to 2009. Of those, 53,502 were 25 to 39 years old, including 3,438 who had advanced breast cancer, also called metastatic or distant disease.
Younger women were the only ones in whom metastatic disease seemed to have increased, the researchers found.
Dr Archie Bleyer from the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland who helped write the study, said it was a "first report of this kind".

Scientists need to verify the increase in advanced breast cancer in young women in the United States and find out whether it is occurring in other developed Western countries, he said.