The commonly quoted figure that one in nine women will develop breast cancer is generally misunderstood in a negative way, and distorts the popular perception of risk at any particular age. It is based on the cumulative number of cases that arise in large populations of women over a long lifetime. In any decade of life, the risk of developing breast cancer is far less than the one in nine figure.
Although breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, and the most common cause of death in women by far is cardiovascular disease. Most women who develop breast cancer do not die of the disease.
The incidence of breast cancer has been rising for a number of years, partly because the aging population is more prone to develop the disease and partly because of earlier detection with widespread mammographic screening. The death rate from breast cancer has actually declined slightly in the last decade as a result of earlier detection and increasing use of adjuvant therapy for early disease.
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