October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This international health campaign was created in 1985 to increase awareness of the disease and help raise funds for research. Breast cancer is the second most common kind of cancer in women, second only to skin cancer. Every year in the U.S., more than 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer. There are currently more than 2.9 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S. and about 1 in 8 women born in the U.S. today will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives. However, in recent years there has been a gradual reduction in female breast cancer incident rates among women aged 50 and older, perhaps coinciding with the decline in prescriptive hormone replacement therapy after menopause. Continue reading →