October is known for its colors: the gorgeous reds, oranges and yellows of fall leaves. The orange pumpkins and green and brown gourds.
Then there’s pink, the color of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It began 28 years ago as a way to promote breast cancer awareness, share information about the disease, and provide greater access to screening services to women.
Breast cancer, sadly, touches most Americans in some direct or indirect way. Here are statistics from The American Cancer Society and BreastCancer.org:
• Breast cancer accounts for nearly one in three cancer cases diagnosed in women in the US.
• About one in eight US women, nearly 12%, will develop invasive breast cancer.
• About 39,500 women will die of breast cancer this year.
• More than 225,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in women in 2012.
The statistics are even scarier for Jewish women:
• Approximately 2.65% of the Ashkenazi Jewish population has one of the three genetic mutations that can lead to breast cancer.
Furthermore, the chances that a person of Ashkenazi Jewish descent has one of these mutations rises dramatically if he or she has a personal or family medical history of breast or ovarian cancer. Consider:
• Twenty percent of Ashkenazi Jews who have been diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 40 have a BRCA1 mutation.
• Twenty-nine percent of Ashkenazi Jews with a family history of two or more breast cancers carry one of these mutations.
• Seventy-three percent of Ashkenazi Jews with a family history that includes two or more cases of breast cancer and at least one case of ovarian cancer carry one of these mutations.
The best way for a woman to reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer remains early detection, through regular self-examinations and annual mammograms after the age of 40.
This month, everyone should go pink. Let the women in your lives know how much you care about them.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
