Your risk of breast cancer if your mother had breast cancer

(Julie Scott/ Very Well Health) — Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, affecting about 13% of women throughout their lifetimes.³ A family history of the disease does increase your risk, but by how much depends on who in your family had breast cancer.

Having a mother with breast cancer increases the chance that you could also develop the disease. While most breast cancer is not hereditary,¹ it is valuable to know if you have family members who were ever diagnosed with the disease. Women who have a mother, sister, or daughter who developed breast cancer at a young age (premenopausal) have double the risk of the disease compared to those who don’t have this family history.²

This article will review the importance of getting an accurate family history, and how that can affect someone’s risk of getting breast cancer. The role of genetic testing will also be discussed. (…)