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Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffRisk factors that affect your likelihood of developing Paget's disease of the breast are the same factors that affect your risk of developing any other type of breast cancer.
Some factors that make you more susceptible to breast cancer include:
- Aging. Your chances of developing breast cancer increase as you get older.
- A personal history of breast cancer. If you've had breast cancer in one breast, you have an increased risk of developing cancer in the other breast.
- Family history. If you have a mother, sister or daughter with breast or ovarian cancer or both, or even a male relative with breast cancer, you have a greater chance of also developing breast cancer.
- Genetic predisposition. Defects in one of several genes, especially BRCA1 or BRCA2, put you at greater risk of developing breast cancer as well as ovarian and colon cancers.
- Radiation exposure. If you received radiation treatments to your chest as a child or young adult, you're more likely to develop breast cancer later in life.
- Excess weight. Weighing more than is healthy for your age and height increases your risk of breast cancer — especially if you gain that weight after menopause. Also, significant weight gain during puberty is linked to increased risk of breast cancer later in life.
- Exposure to estrogen. The longer you're exposed to estrogen — which circulates in higher levels in your body from menstruation to menopause — the greater your breast cancer risk. Early menstruation, occurring before age 12, or late menopause, occurring after age 55, prolongs your exposure to estrogen. Taking estrogen, such as for hormone replacement therapy, also increases the risk of breast cancer for some women.
- Race. White women are more likely to develop breast cancer than black or Hispanic women are, but black women are more likely to die of the disease.
Having one or more risk factors doesn't necessarily mean you'll develop breast cancer. Most women with breast cancer have no known risk factors.
