Am I at risk of breast cancer?

Family history of breast cancer

Most breast cancers (95%) occur in women with no family history of breast cancer.

Even when women have a family history of breast cancer, most are not at an increased risk of breast cancer. Their family history is due to chance alone.

Only a very small number of women with a family history of breast cancer are at an increased risk of breast cancer. Factors that increase risk include the gender of the family member diagnosed with breast cancer and how old they were at diagnosis.

Of 100 women:

Source:  https://www.breastcancerriskfactors.gov.au/

Family history vs very strong family history

We define family history of breast cancer as having either:

• a female first degree relative (mother, sister or daughter) diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 50
• a male first degree relative (father, brother or son) diagnosed with breast cancer at any age.

Only 4 out of 100 women are at a moderately increased risk of developing breast cancer based on their family history.

If you meet our criteria for family history of breast cancer, you’ll be offered screening every year instead of every 2 years. If no signs of breast cancer have been found by the time you turn 60, you’ll start to have breast screens every 2 years. This is because your risk is considered to have reduced.

We define a very strong family history of breast cancer as being aged 30 to 49 and meeting the Cancer Australia High Risk criteria.

Only one out of 100 women is at a high risk of developing breast cancer based on her family history.

There is a Breast Cancer Family Clinic for women with a very strong family history of breast cancer. The clinic offers advice, counselling and a personal management plan. You'll need a referral from your doctor to attend this clinic. You should talk to your doctor if you think you might have a very strong family history of breast cancer. Your doctor will be able to assess your breast cancer risk and decide if a referral to the Breast Cancer Family Clinic is appropriate.

Previous diagnosis of breast cancer

If you’ve had breast cancer before, you’re at an increased risk of developing breast cancer again. You should talk to your treating doctor to see if screening with us is right for you.

Breast density

Women with higher breast density are at increased risk of breast cancer. The reasons for this are not well understood.

Breasts tend to become less dense as women get older but up to half of all women over 40 have dense breasts. Breast cancers are harder to find in x-rays of dense breasts. This is because dense breast tissue and breast cancers both appear white on x-rays. Despite this, breast screening by mammogram (x-ray) is still the best way of finding breast cancers in women with dense breasts.

Read more about breast density and breast screening (PDF, 177KB) on the BreastScreen Australia website.