Year: 2006
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In the Western world breast cancer is a fairly common disease in women, nearly one in \nten is diagnosed with breast cancer during her life. Worldwide 1.200.000 women are diagnosed \nwith breast cancer annually, in the Netherlands about 12.000, 25% of them before \nage 50 years 1. Worldwide the incidence doubled between 1975 and 2000, with the steepest \nincrease in developing countries. Survival has clearly improved the last decade, mainly \nas a result of earlier detection by women’s awareness and mammography screening, and \nalso by increased use of adjuvant hormonal and chemotherapy 2,3. The diagnosis is still \nfrightening as approximately 3.500 women die annually of breast cancer metastases in the \nNetherlands, but an increasing number of women survives after the disease. \nThe main risk factors for breast cancer are associated with; increasing age, a family \nhistory for the disease and previous breast cancer. Only a small fraction, about 20%, of all \nbreast cancer deaths in the western world and worldwide are estimated to be caused by \npreventable behavioural risk-factors like physical inactivity, obesity, alcohol consumption \nand use of hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) 4. These factors influence the hormonal \nbalance, leading for instance to early menarche and late menopause, hormonal factors that \nare known to incr
Author: Madeleine M.A. Tilanus‐Linthorst
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1515038209