The Paradigms in Breast Cancer Prevention

Three important recent models have shaped our current knowledge about breast cancer prevention: the accumulating evidence that the disease originates early in life, the impact of (epi-)genomic imprinting, and the recognition that breast cancer is a family of related but distinct diseases. The breast, the target organ, starting a unique intense growth after the first decade of life and involuting already during the third decade, is tremendously vulnerable to several endogenous and exogenous hormone disrupting molecules and other chemical and physical genotoxic factors. Lifestyle and toxins seem to generate long lasting (epi-)genomic marks especially in rapidly growing tissues such as the breast that can be reset for example by an early first full term pregnancy.