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Life After Breast Cancer
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Quick Facts
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Ask Your Doctor
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Medical Glossary
Quick Facts

  • When breast cancers are discovered at an early, "localized" stage and treated (the current standard of treatment for early-stage breast cancer is lumpectomy followed by radiation), there is a 97 percent rate of five-year survival.

  • Approximately 80% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer are detected in the early stages of the disease.

  • Over two million breast cancer survivors are alive in the U.S. today.

  • 25 percent of women are likely to have a recurrence in their lifetime.

  • Approximately 33 percent of women with estrogen receptor positive breast cancer experience a recurrence.  Over half of these occur more than five years after surgery.

  • Chemoprevention drugs, like Tamoxifen, are proving to be very effective in preventing a recurrence of cancer in patients with hormone-receptor positive breast cancer. 

  • The primary cause of death in women who have had breast cancer is not cancer; it's cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death for women over 50.
 
 
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