Mnemonics: Breast Cancer causes

Risk Factors for Development of Breast Cancer (A to G Guide)

For easy remembrance of the risk factors that can cause breast cancer, it is grouped into 7 major titles that start from A to G, and under each heading both protective factors or factors that has least causative effect and factors that has strong risk are classified and described.

Risk Factors for development of Breast Carcinoma

		Risk	Protective
A	Age	Old age >90 years (~20%)	Rare <20 years
B	Benign Breast Conditions	Hyperplasia (1.5-3 fold) Papilloma (1.5-3 fold) Ductal / Lobular Atypical hyperplasia (5 fold)
C	Cancer	Cancer of contralateral Breast (3-4 fold) Cervix Ovary Colon Prostate Radiation Therapy for Hodgkin's Lymphoma
D	Diet	Alcohol Phytoestrogen Deficiency	Vitamin C
E	Estrogen (Conversion of Steroid hormone to estradiol in the body fat)	Nulliparous Obese Postmenopausal Women Exogenous Estrogen (OCP, Mixed prep HRT)	Breast feeding Late Menarche Early Menopause Early age at 1st child birth
F	Familial History	2-10 fold risk in family history of Breast, Colon, Ovarian and Prostate Carcinoma
G	Genetics	BRCA 1 (Breast Ovarian, prostate and Colorectal Ca ) BRCA2 (Male Breast Ca) p53 HER 2
G	Geography	African american (Western world 1-3 % of all death of women )	Rare in Japan and Taiwan

Source: Bailey and Love’s Short Practice of Surgery.