Can teens get breast cancer

Can teens get breast cancer?

I am a teen and I recently read somewhere that wearing your bra at night can increase the risk of breast cancer. I dont normally do that but also, they said that teens can rarely get breast cancer and I always feel scared that I am missing a bump or something. Can teens easily have breast cancer?

Can teens get breast cancer?

First - teens and breast cancer. The chances are so close to zero that it makes almost no difference. If a teenager had breast cancer her case would make the newspapers and be written up in medical journals the world over. 

Breast cancer is almost unheard of in under 25s (let alone teens); fewer than 0.1% of all those diagnosed with it are under 30, only 5% are under 40 and most (80%) are over 50. 

Breast cancer records over 50 years show no cases in under 15s and one case in every 1.3 million among 15 - 19 year olds. 

You have a much, much higher chance of being struck by lightning (twice), and you don't waste any time worrying about that, do you? 

Secondly, bras: there is absolutely no evidence of any link between bras and breast cancer - not sleeping in a bra, or wearing a tight bra, or a wired bra or any of the other myths and rumours that go around among teenage girls. 

Breast cancer happens when normal cells change so that they grow in an uncontrolled way. This uncontrolled growth causes a tumour to form. Your underwear cannot trigger this process. 

Now, you say you're scared you might 'miss a bump'; that sounds as if you are doing breast self-examinations. You shouldn't be; at your age they will tell you nothing and may worry you unnecessarily. 

The American Cancer Society and other cancer organisations recommend that women begin breast self examination no younger than 20, if then. Before that it's pointless; firstly because there are so many hormonal changes that there is no 'normal' - and self examination is about a woman knowing what's normal for her and reporting any changes. And secondly because the chance of breast cancer is almost nil. 

So stop doing breast checks, and stop worrying about lumps. Breasts are pretty lumpy things anyway, and at your age any changes you notice in your breasts are almost certainly normal hormonal development. Most breast lumps, even in women over 50, aren't cancer - over 80% of breast lumps that are investigated turn out to be benign