What is Breast Cancer?
Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Invasive breast cancer is defined as cancer of the breast. Breast cancer starts in the breast and can spread or metastasize to other parts of the body from there.
Although breast cancer is more common in women it does occur in men as well. According to the American Cancer Society invasive breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer.
How Many Women Get Breast Cancer?
About 182,460 women in the United States will be found to have invasive breast cancer in 2008.
Right now there are about two and a half million breast cancer survivors in the United States.
The chance of a woman having invasive breast cancer some time during her life is about 1 in 8.
Breast cancer death rates are going down. This is most likely the result of finding the cancer earlier and improved treatment.
