- Breast cancer is not one disease; tumors differ by location, stage, hormone and HER2 status, affecting behavior and treatment choices.
- Risk arises from nonmodifiable factors like age, family history, inherited genes, and breast density, and modifiable factors like alcohol, weight, and activity.
- Screening: average-risk women should discuss mammogram timing; know breast density; report new lumps or changes regardless of recent normal mammogram.
- Diagnosis requires imaging and biopsy; tumor testing guides personalized treatment including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone, targeted, and immunotherapies.
- Breast cancer affects emotions, identity, and life after treatment; disparities exist by race; support, advocacy, and early detection save lives.
Every October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month puts a spotlight on a disease that affects millions of people and their families. It’s a time to educate ourselves about breast cancer risk, screening, diagnosis, and treatment — but also to listen to survivors, support people going through treatment, and remember those we’ve lost.
Cancer awareness has long been deeply personal to Katie Couric. After losing her first husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer, Katie became a passionate advocate for cancer screening and research. Then, in June 2022, cancer became personal in a new way when Katie was diagnosed with breast cancer herself.
Since then, Katie Couric Media has spoken with doctors, researchers, survivors, caregivers, and members of our own community about nearly every aspect of the disease. We’ve gathered some of the most important information and stories here, from understanding your risk and getting screened to navigating treatment and life after cancer.
Breast Cancer Basics
What is breast cancer?
Breast cancer occurs when cells in the breast begin growing out of control. But “breast cancer” isn’t one single disease.
Cancers can begin in different parts of the breast, have different biological characteristics, and behave differently in the body. Some remain confined to the area where they started, while others invade surrounding tissue or spread to other parts of the body.
Those distinctions matter because the location, stage, hormone-receptor status, HER2 status, and other characteristics of a tumor can all help determine which treatments are most likely to work.
For a deeper dive, read Not All Breast Cancers Are the Same: What Your Diagnosis Really Means.
How common is breast cancer?
Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the United States other than skin cancers, accounting for about one in three new cancers in women each year.
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2026, about 321,910 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women in the United States, along with about 60,730 cases of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). About 42,140 women are expected to die from breast cancer this year.
There are also more than 4 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States, including women who are still undergoing treatment.
What causes breast cancer?
There usually isn’t one identifiable reason why someone develops breast cancer. Instead, several factors can influence risk — and having one or even several risk factors does not mean you’ll develop the disease.
Some risk factors are outside of your control, including getting older, your family history, certain inherited genetic variants, and having dense breasts.
Others are potentially modifiable. Drinking alcohol increases breast cancer risk, and physical activity is associated with a lower risk. Excess body weight after menopause is also associated with an increased risk.
Hormones can play a role, too. Certain forms of menopausal hormone therapy can affect breast cancer risk, but the relationship is complex and depends on factors including the type of therapy, how long it’s used, and an individual’s medical history. Anyone considering hormone therapy should discuss their individual benefits and risks with their healthcare provider.
Diet is a little less straightforward. Eating a nutritious diet has many health benefits, but research hasn’t established that any one specific diet can prevent breast cancer.
Read more about the link between diet, exercise, and breast cancer.
Is breast cancer genetic?
It can be, but most breast cancers are not caused by an inherited genetic variant.
“Everyone has BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes,” Susan Domchek, MD, executive director of the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center, previously told Katie Couric Media. “These genes make proteins that help repair DNA damage in the cell.”
When someone inherits a harmful variant in BRCA1 or BRCA2, however, their risk of developing certain cancers — including breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and prostate cancers — can rise substantially.
BRCA1 and BRCA2 aren’t the only genes associated with hereditary breast cancer, either. Genetic counseling can help determine whether testing makes sense based on your personal and family history.
For more, read our guide to BRCA genes and genetic testing for breast cancer.
Can men get breast cancer?
Yes. Breast cancer is much less common in men, which can unfortunately contribute to a lack of awareness.
The American Cancer Society estimates that about 2,670 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in men in the United States in 2026, and about 530 men will die from the disease.
That’s why a new breast lump or other unusual change shouldn’t be ignored simply because someone is male.
Read more about male breast cancer and what men should know about their risk.
Types and Stages of Breast Cancer
What are the different types of breast cancer?
Doctors classify breast cancer in several different ways, including where it begins, whether it has invaded surrounding tissue, and which biological markers the cancer cells carry.
Some terms you may encounter include:
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS): Abnormal cells are found inside a breast milk duct but haven’t spread into surrounding breast tissue.
Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC): Cancer that began in a milk duct has spread beyond it into surrounding breast tissue.
Lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS): Despite its name, LCIS isn’t breast cancer. It means abnormal cells have developed in the breast’s milk-producing lobules and can indicate an increased risk of developing breast cancer.
Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC): Cancer begins in the breast’s milk-producing lobules and spreads into surrounding tissue.
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC): A rare, aggressive form of breast cancer that can cause swelling, redness, thickening, or dimpling of the skin rather than a distinct lump.
Metastatic breast cancer: Also called stage IV breast cancer, this means the cancer has spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to another part of the body.
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC): These cancer cells don’t have estrogen receptors or progesterone receptors and don’t make enough of the HER2 protein to be considered HER2-positive. Because TNBC lacks those common treatment targets, hormone therapy and HER2-targeted therapies aren’t effective against it. But treatment has evolved significantly, and options can include chemotherapy, immunotherapy, antibody-drug conjugates, targeted therapies for certain patients, radiation, and surgery.
Learn more in Everything You Need To Know About Triple-Negative Breast Cancer and our breakdown of the different types of breast cancer.
What are the stages of breast cancer?
Breast cancer is typically staged from 0 through IV. In general, the stage describes how much cancer is present and how far it has spread.
“Stages are just a way of describing how extensive the breast cancer is,” Arlene Jamelle Richardson, MD, previously explained to Katie Couric Media. “The stage is determined by factors like the size of the tumor and how far the cancer has spread.”
Stage is important, but it isn’t the only information doctors use to understand a diagnosis. The tumor’s grade, hormone-receptor status, HER2 status, genetic characteristics, and other factors can also influence treatment and prognosis.
Breast Cancer Signs and Symptoms
What are the signs of breast cancer?
A new lump or mass is the most common symptom of breast cancer, but it isn’t the only one.
Other possible signs include swelling of all or part of the breast; dimpling or thickening of the skin; breast or nipple pain; a nipple that turns inward; nipple discharge other than breast milk; redness, dryness, or flaking of the breast or nipple; or swollen lymph nodes under the arm or near the collarbone.
Many breast changes are caused by conditions other than cancer. Still, any new or unexplained change should be evaluated by a healthcare professional.
What does a breast cancer lump feel like?
There isn’t one universal type of breast cancer lump. A suspicious mass may be hard and painless with irregular edges, but breast cancers can also feel soft, round, tender, or painful.
The important thing is knowing what is normal for your body and bringing any new lump or change to your healthcare provider’s attention.
What does inflammatory breast cancer look like?
Inflammatory breast cancer often doesn’t cause a distinct lump. Instead, the breast may become swollen, red, warm, or painful, and the skin may thicken or develop dimpling that resembles the peel of an orange.
Because these symptoms can resemble an infection or another breast condition, it’s important to seek medical evaluation for persistent or unexplained changes.
Does breast cancer hurt?
It can, but breast cancer doesn’t always cause pain. A painless lump can be cancer, while breast pain is frequently caused by something other than cancer.
That’s another reason not to use pain — or the lack of it — as a reason to dismiss a new breast change.
Breast Cancer Screening and Early Detection
Should you perform breast self-exams?
You may have heard that everyone should perform a formal breast self-exam every month, but recommendations have changed.
For people at average risk, the American Cancer Society does not recommend routine breast self-exams as a breast cancer screening method. Instead, it’s important to be familiar with how your breasts normally look and feel so that you notice changes.
If you discover a new lump, nipple change, discharge, swelling, skin change, or anything else unusual, tell your healthcare provider — even if you recently had a normal mammogram.
When should you get your first mammogram?
For women at average risk, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends getting a mammogram every other year beginning at age 40 and continuing through age 74.
Other medical organizations have somewhat different recommendations about screening frequency, and people at higher risk may need to begin screening earlier or receive additional tests.
Your family history, genetics, breast density, previous breast findings, and other factors can all affect your individual screening plan, so talk with your healthcare provider about what schedule makes sense for you.
For more, read when you should get your first mammogram and Katie’s look at whether current breast cancer screening guidelines go far enough.
What are dense breasts?
Breasts are made up of fatty, fibrous, and glandular tissue. Someone has dense breasts when they have relatively more fibrous and glandular tissue and less fatty tissue.
Breast density matters for two reasons: Dense breast tissue can make cancer more difficult to see on a mammogram, and having dense breasts is itself associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.
As of September 2024, mammography facilities in the United States are required to tell patients whether their breasts are dense in their mammogram results.
Depending on your overall risk and breast density, your healthcare provider may discuss whether additional imaging is appropriate. The USPSTF says there currently isn’t enough evidence to make a universal recommendation for or against supplemental ultrasound or MRI after a negative mammogram in women with dense breasts, so this is an individualized conversation.
Read our complete guide to dense breasts, screening, and breast cancer risk.
And read why one KCM reader says Katie helped save her life after KCM’s reporting on dense breasts inspired her to advocate for additional screening.
How Breast Cancer Is Diagnosed
An abnormal mammogram or breast change doesn’t automatically mean cancer. Additional imaging may be needed to take a closer look.
When cancer is suspected, a biopsy is generally needed to make a definitive diagnosis. During a biopsy, cells or tissue are removed and examined by a pathologist.
If cancer is found, testing the tumor can reveal information such as whether it has estrogen or progesterone receptors, whether it is HER2-positive or HER2-negative, and other characteristics that help doctors determine the subtype and develop an individualized treatment plan.
That’s why two people with “breast cancer” can end up receiving very different treatments.
Read what the terminology in a breast cancer diagnosis actually means.
Breast Cancer Treatment
How is breast cancer treated?
There is no single breast cancer treatment plan. Treatment depends on the type and stage of the cancer, its biological characteristics, the patient’s overall health and preferences, and many other factors.
Treatment can include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone or endocrine therapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapies. Some patients receive several of these treatments, while others may not need all of them.
Surgery and radiation
Surgery is a common treatment for early breast cancer. Depending on the diagnosis, a patient may undergo a lumpectomy, which removes the tumor and a small amount of surrounding tissue, or a mastectomy, which removes one or both breasts.
Radiation therapy uses high-energy radiation to destroy cancer cells and is often given after breast-conserving surgery. It may also be used in other circumstances to reduce the risk of recurrence or help control symptoms.
Find out more about how radiation treatment for breast cancer affects the body.
Does everyone with breast cancer need chemotherapy?
No.
Breast cancer treatment has become increasingly personalized, and doctors can sometimes use information about the tumor’s biology — including genomic testing in certain early-stage cancers — to estimate whether chemotherapy is likely to provide meaningful benefit.
For example, some people with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer may be able to use genomic testing to help guide the chemotherapy decision.
That can mean sparing some patients from treatment they are unlikely to benefit from while identifying others for whom chemotherapy could be important.
Read how two breast cancer patients made very different chemotherapy decisions and learn about a genomic test that can help guide breast cancer treatment.
What medications are used to treat breast cancer?
The answer depends heavily on the cancer subtype.
Hormone or endocrine therapy may be used for hormone receptor-positive cancers. HER2-targeted drugs can be used against HER2-positive cancers. Chemotherapy, immunotherapy, antibody-drug conjugates, and other targeted therapies may also be used depending on the individual diagnosis.
These advances are one reason understanding your tumor’s biology is so important: The more doctors know about the cancer, the more precisely they can choose treatments designed to target it.
Learn more about breast cancer medications and how they work.
Life During and After Breast Cancer
The emotional impact of breast cancer
Cancer treatment affects much more than the part of the body where a tumor appears.
A diagnosis can bring fear, anxiety, grief, anger, isolation, and uncertainty. Treatment can change someone’s hair, breasts, sexuality, energy, relationships, and sense of identity. And those effects don’t necessarily disappear when treatment ends.
Survivorship can carry its own challenges, from fear of recurrence to adjusting to a body that looks or feels different.
That’s why we think breast cancer coverage should include what happens after the scans and surgeries, too.
Read What Happens After Breast Cancer for one survivor’s candid account of how cancer changed her life.
And in 3 Women Open Up About Femininity Post-Mastectomy, survivors discuss body image, sexuality, and learning to feel at home in their bodies again.
Breast cancer after 50
Age can shape the breast cancer experience, too. Treatment decisions may intersect with menopause, other health conditions, caregiving responsibilities, sexuality, body image, and questions about quality of life.
In What No One Tells You About Breast Cancer After 50, survivors and experts explore some of the challenges that can get overlooked in broader conversations about the disease.
Disparities in Breast Cancer
Not everyone faces the same breast cancer risks — or has equal access to screening and high-quality treatment.
Although Black women have a slightly lower overall incidence of breast cancer than white women, they have a substantially higher breast cancer death rate. They are also disproportionately affected by triple-negative breast cancer.
There isn’t one simple explanation for the disparity. Tumor biology can play a role, but so can access to high-quality screening and treatment, insurance coverage, geography, socioeconomic factors, and inequities within the healthcare system.
The encouraging news is that progress is possible. A 2025 analysis highlighted by KCM found declining breast cancer mortality among Black women in many of the major metropolitan areas studied, although substantial disparities remain.
Read more about breast cancer outcomes among Black women and why disparities persist.
Katie Couric’s Breast Cancer Journey
In June 2022, Katie went in for a mammogram that she was six months overdue for. That screening led to a breast cancer diagnosis.
Her doctor told her that her tumor was hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, and highly treatable, particularly because it had been detected early. Katie underwent surgery and radiation and has since used her experience to advocate for screening and encourage people to better understand their own breast cancer risk.
Her experience has also made one issue particularly important to her: breast density. Katie has dense breasts herself, and she has repeatedly advocated for women to learn their breast density and talk to their doctors about what it could mean for their screening.
Read Katie Couric’s personal essay about her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Breast Cancer Survival and Recovery
What is the breast cancer survival rate?
Survival depends on many factors, including how far the cancer has spread when it is diagnosed, the cancer’s biological characteristics, the person’s overall health, and how the cancer responds to treatment.
According to current American Cancer Society data, the five-year relative survival rate for women with localized invasive breast cancer — meaning there is no sign it has spread outside the breast — is greater than 99 percent. For regional breast cancer, the five-year relative survival rate is 87 percent, and for distant or metastatic disease, it is 32 percent.
Across all stages combined, the five-year relative survival rate is 92 percent.
These statistics describe large groups of people diagnosed in previous years; they can’t predict what will happen to any one individual, and treatments continue to improve.
Breast cancer survivor stories
Statistics tell us a lot about breast cancer. They don’t tell us what it actually feels like to live through it.
Over the years, members of the KCM community have generously shared their experiences with diagnosis, treatment, recovery, recurrence, fear, family, friendship, and life after cancer.
Wake-Up Call Readers Share Stories About Surviving Breast Cancer brings together firsthand experiences from women of different ages and backgrounds.
When You’d Least Expect It: Four Women Under 40 Describe Their Battles With Breast Cancer explores what it’s like to receive a diagnosis at an age when cancer may be the last thing on your mind.
And Why One Reader Says Katie Helped Save Her Life is a powerful reminder of why information — and advocating for yourself — can matter.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
When is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is observed every October. The campaign has grown into a worldwide effort to increase awareness of breast cancer, encourage screening and early detection, support people affected by the disease, and raise money for research.
What does the pink breast cancer ribbon mean?
The pink ribbon has become an internationally recognized symbol of breast cancer awareness.
But awareness is most useful when it leads to action: knowing your personal risk, staying up to date on recommended screening, understanding your breast density, paying attention to changes in your body, and talking to a healthcare provider when something doesn’t seem right.
And if you or someone you love is facing breast cancer, remember that no two diagnoses — and no two experiences — are exactly alike. The science continues to evolve, and so do the options available for screening, treatment, and life after cancer.
