Risk from Age, Race and Social Class

Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer of women in all developed countries (except Japan), and in many developing areas such as Northern Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Western Asia and Micronesia/Polynesia. It has been estimated that some 719,000 new cases were diagnosed worldwide in 1985, accounting for about 19% of all female cancers [1]. The annual incidence of breast cancer worldwide will be more than one million cases by the year 2000 [2].