What age is the risk of breast cancer highest
An increase in age is a factor that makes you more prone to breast cancer. The highest number of breast cancer patients are aged between 50 to 70 years. The cases of people who are young than 50 years account for less than 4 percent of the total cases (Centers for disease control and prevention,2018). Older women who get to age 55 before menopause have a higher chance of getting breast cancer as they are exposed longer to hormones. The possibilities to get breast cancer to older women are also determined by some experiences of a woman at the early age. For instance, women who had been exposed to breast and chest treatment before the age of 30 are more likely to get breast cancer at the fifties. According to the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory,2014 women above fifty years are more susceptible to breast cancer because of a lack of cell responsiveness. The scientist found that as women age, the cells responsible for maintaining healthy breast tissues became unable to respond to the surrounding. Breast of women older than 50 years lacked mechanical cues that were useful to suppress tumors. Researchers have also discovered that Multipotent progenitors, an adult stem cell that is the origin of breast cancer, accumulate more in the breast epithelial tissues of women above 50 years. The multipotent progenitors in young women were found to be more responsive to changes in the surroundings as compared to those of older women. The adult stem cells accumulated in women older than fifty-year were identified to produce more luminal and tumor-suppressing cells. This accounts for the reasons why most older women diagnosed with cancer are luminal.
References
Center for Disease Control and prevention. (2020, January 13). What are the risk factors for breast cancer? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/basic_info/risk_factors.htm
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (2014). Why are older women more vulnerable to breast cancer?