There has been a long-standing myth that breast cancer only affects older women, mostly because the median age at the time of breast cancer diagnosis is 62 and a very small number of women are diagnosed at a young age.
During the past five years, the number of women under 50 receiving a breast cancer diagnosis has increased by more than two percent yearly, largely because of early detection. Although the incidence of breast cancer in younger women is still quite low (about 49 per 100,000 in 2019, according to the most recent statistics available), this is a very troubling trend, particularly given that women under 40 have a nearly 40% higher risk of dying from breast cancer than women over 40 do.
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