One in eight women will develop invasive breast cancer. It comes on the second spot among the most common cancers, following skin cancer, affecting American women. In over past 20 years, breast cancer death rates have shown a decline due to better screening and treatments.

The American Cancer Society has estimated that presently, there are roughly three million breast cancer survivors in the US. Thus, ‘one in eight’ does not represent that one in eight is going to die from the disease.

Rather, the prediction for most of the women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer today is tremendously good. They are expected to be cured, resulting that the patient can stay alive and lead a healthy life in most of the cases.

Breast cancer is not a sole disease. Many cancers are quite aggressive in comparison to others. Physicians have a number of tools available for understanding how much of a risk the individual patient is facing.

Breast cancer care and research has been advancing with time and every study has added important information, raising new questions to ask and more areas for investigation.

Most of the times, breast cancer treatment begins with surgery to eradicate the cancer. Then the specialists analyze the tumor, find out its characteristics, and look if the cancer has spread. Physicians with the help of this approach decide additional therapies that will decrease the risk of the cancer come back.