Breast Cancer Breast cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in women and is the second leading cause of death among women everywhere. What is breast cancer exactly, you may ask? It is a disease in which malignant cells form in the tissue of the breast. This disease occurs almost entirely in women, but men can also get breast cancer as well. Each year there is an estimate of over 220,000 women in the United States who will be diagnosed with breast cancer and more than 40,000 will die. Although breast cancer in men is rare, an estimate of 2,150 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and approximately 410 will die each year. There are many risk factors that can increase the chance of someone developing breast cancer, but it is not yet known exactly how some of these risk factors can cause cells to become cancerous. Certain inherited DNA mutations can also increase the risk of someone developing breast cancer. Breast cancer effects one in eight women during their lives. Other risk factors include age; as a women gets older her chances of it developing can increase and personal factors such as beginning the menstrual cycle before the age of 12 or going through menopause after age 55.Other risks include obesity, using hormone replacement therapy, taking birth control pills, alcohol, or even not having children or having your first child after age 35. According to radiation oncologists there are four stages of breast cancer. Stage I is when the tumor is no more than two centimeters and has not spread to the lymph nodes and the outside of the breast. Stage II is when the tumor has grown at least two to five centimeters and has either spread to the axillary lymph nodes of no more than three or has not spread to the axillary lymph nodes. Stage III, known as locally or regionally advanced cancer, is either when the tumor is larger than five centimeters with cancer cells that have spread to your axillary lymph nodes or when the tumor is smaller than five centimeters, but the cancer has spread into nearby lymph nodes and the nodes are growing