October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s a time for reflection on trends in breast cancer research, prevention, and treatment. According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 310,720 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024. Furthermore, about 42,250 will die of the disease. 

Breast cancer is the most common type of non-skin cancer in women in the United States. Notably, it accounts for 30% of all new cancer cases in women. It is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death in American women. About one woman in eight in the United States will develop breast cancer during her lifetime—about 13% of all women.

Breast cancer can develop in different parts of the breast. Cancers that arise in the milk ducts are called ductal carcinomas and represent the majority of breast cancer cases. Cancers that form in the breast lobules are known as lobular carcinomas and are more likely than ductal carcinomas to be present in both breasts. Another type of breast cancer, inflammatory breast cancer, presents as warmth, redness, and swelling of the breast.

Risk factors

Like most cancers, the risk of breast cancer increases with age. Additional risk factors include exposure to estrogen made by the body; presence of dense breast tissue; early onset of menstruation; older age at first birth; the use of hormones for symptoms of menopause; smoking; obesity; and not getting enough exercise.

Hereditary breast cancer makes up 5% to 10% of all breast cancer diagnoses. Women who have mutations in certain genes, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, can have a higher level of risk.

Breast cancer in men

Men can also get breast cancer. An estimated 2,790 men are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024, and about 530 will die of the disease. Radiation exposure, high levels of estrogen, and a family history of breast cancer can increase a man’s risk of the disease.

Personal Stories of Breast Cancer

Julia K. Levine of Venice, California, is a survivor of metastatic lobular breast cancer and a founding member of the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance. She tells other patients and survivors: “Do as much evidence-based research as possible, go to conferences, meet other advocates, and don’t be afraid to talk to scientists. Most importantly, advocate for yourself.” Read her story in the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2024.

For Lourdes Monje of Philadelphia, a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer at the age of only 25 was a terrific shock. Surgery and radiation followed, and participation in a clinical trial of an investigational therapeutic has given Lourdes new hope. Their story is in the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2024. 

The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium

The annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium is cosponsored by the AACR and UT Health San Antonio’s Mays Cancer Center. SABCS® is a major contributor to breast cancer research and breast cancer awareness. The next SABCS will be held December 10-13, 2024. SABCS attracts an international audience of basic scientists, physician-scientists, clinical investigators, breast care providers, and patient advocates. Topics include experimental biology, etiology, prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of premalignant breast disease and breast cancer.

The AACR’s official blog, Cancer Research Catalyst, wrote about some of the exciting developments at the 2023 SABCS. These included:

• How Do Triple-negative Breast Cancers Evolve?
• Defining and Demystifying Inflammatory Breast Cancer
• Some Patients May Safely Skip Radiation
• POSITIVE Results for Breast Cancer Patients Wanting to Conceive
• The Five ‘W’s’ (and ‘H’) of SABCS 2023
• SABCS 2023: As Conference Ends, Experts Look to the Future
• Wrapping Up SABCS 2023

more about breast cancer

• Research suggests postmenopausal women over 50 with low-risk hormone receptor-positive breast cancer may forgo radiation after surgery. Read more in AACR’s magazine Cancer Today.
• The AACR and the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance are facilitating research into an understudied form of breast cancer. Read the details in this post on Cancer Research Catalyst, the AACR’s blog.
• New recommendations clarify when women diagnosed with breast cancer should consider genetic testing for inherited cancer risk. Cancer Today has the story.
• Breast cancer survival rates continue to rise: New report highlights decades of progress, as well as a persisting disparity. Read more in Cancer Today.

Supporting Research through Grants and Fellowships

The AACR and its partners provide grants to scientists to support their investigations of various aspects of breast cancer. Grants made in 2024 include:

• AACR-Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance-Deborah Mueller Foundation Fund Invasive Lobular Carcinoma Innovation and Discovery Grants gave two grants. One went to Julia M. Houthuijzen, PhD, Netherlands Cancer Institute, for her study of “Ex vivo human ILC cultures for personalized treatment.” Carolina Reduzzi, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine, received support for her study of “Comprehensive liquid biopsies to decipher lobular breast cancer metastasis.”
• AACR’s Maximizing Opportunity for New Advancements in Research in Cancer (MONARCA) Grants for Latin America is supporting Maria Florencia Mercogliano, PhD, Experimental Medicine and Biology Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is studying “Predictive biomarkers for HER2+ breast cancer using spatial transcriptomics.”
• Min Yu, PhD, University of Maryland, Baltimore, received an AACR-Bristol Myers Squibb Midcareer Female Investigator Grant for her study of “Prolonged suppression of tumor intrinsic interferon signaling on metastasis.”
• A grant from the AACR-Conquer Cancer®, the ASCO Foundation Young Investigator Award for Translational Cancer Research is helping Nolan Priedigkeit, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in his study of “Fusion RNAs as individualized therapeutic targets in advanced breast cancer.”
• Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Awards to Promote Diversity and Inclusion made two awards. Paola Betancur, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, is studying “A genomic insertion variant activates immune escape in breast cancer.” Francisco Sanchez-Vega, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, received a grant for “Race-aware multimodal data integration for outcome models in breast cancer.”

for more information

Please see our page on breast cancer for more information on prevention, screening, and treatment. This page also has information on breast cancer treatment during pregnancy.