Do you know what the odds are for breast cancer survival? Did you know that breast cancer can afflict men as well as women? Do you know enough about breast cancer research? These are all questions that you should know the answers to. Breast cancer is not some condition that you can just ignore; it will not go away. Most people either know someone who has had breast cancer or have had breast cancer themselves. It is a disease that has impacted people all over the globe.

The good news about the odds for breast cancer survival is that it is much higher now than ever before. Yes, there are still factors that contribute to your chances of developing breast cancer. Before you start going over your risk factors, first you have to know what the most common form of breast cancer is. It is ductal carcinoma. It starts in the breast's milk ducts. There are other forms of breast cancer but this is the most common.

You can lower your breast cancer risk by knowing what factors add up to an increased risk factor. The National Cancer Institute has a wonderful website (www.cancer.gov) and a special section devoted just to breast cancer. One of the links takes you to a page that displays all of the risk factors involved in calculating the odds of developing breast cancer. Things such as genetic history, early menstruation and hormone replacement therapy are all factors. There are also links that include the latest detection methods for finding breast cancer. You probably already know about self-examination and mammograms. More advanced techniques, should a lump be discovered, involve biopsies. This is where a portion of the lump is taken and sent to a lab for testing.

There are treatment options that are having fantastic results. There are new chemotherapy and radiation therapy chemicals that do not cause the patient to lose any hair and do not affect the patient as badly as past methods. In an ironic twist, new hormone therapies can be used to help shrink cancerous breast tissue. On one hand certain hormones can raise the risk factor but on the other it can help to reduce the amount of cancerous tissue.

If you want to know the risks and odds for breast cancer survival, then you have to know as much as possible. You can always turn to your doctor for information and he or she can go over your family history for any genetic markers. Another great source of information is the National Cancer Institute's website at www.cancer.gov. Research all that you want. The more information you have the better off you will be.