Breast Cancer Prevention

Protective factors that lower the risk of breast cancer

Some protective factors involve avoiding factors that are known to increase your risk of breast cancer. Examples of these protective factors include reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption and maintaining a healthy weight. Other protective factors that have been shown to lower the risk of breast cancer include:

• Being physically active.
• Having an early pregnancy. Women who have a full-term pregnancy before age 20 have a lower risk of breast cancer than women who have not had children or who give birth to their first child after age 35.
• Breastfeeding for at least several months after childbirth.

Learn more about factors that increase the risk of breast cancer at Breast Cancer Causes and Risk Factors.

Risk reduction strategies for people at high risk of breast cancer

Several risk reduction strategies are available for people who have an increased risk of breast cancer. Talk with your doctor to learn more about your personal risk and whether any of these strategies might be appropriate for you. Learn about how doctors assess breast cancer risk in the section Understanding your risk of breast cancer in Breast Cancer Causes and Risk Factors.

Risk-reducing medications are drugs or other substances that can help lower a person’s risk of developing cancer or keep it from coming back. The use of drugs to lower the risk of cancer is called chemoprevention. Chemoprevention of breast cancer involves the use of hormone therapies, including:

• Selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), which are drugs that act like estrogen on some tissues but block the effect of estrogen on other tissues. SERMs include tamoxifen, which is used in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women, and raloxifene, which is used only in postmenopausal women. Both tamoxifen and raloxifene are FDA-approved to reduce breast cancer risk in women at higher-than-average risk, and tamoxifen is approved to reduce risk in women who had breast cancer in the past.
• Aromatase inhibitors or inactivators, which block the activity of an enzyme the body uses to make estrogen in the ovaries and in other tissues. Such drugs, which include anastrozole and exemestane, may be used in postmenopausal women to lower the risk of developing breast cancer. Aromatase inhibitors have not been approved by the FDA to reduce breast cancer risk.

Hormone therapies have serious side effects, and it’s important to discuss the possible benefits and harms of these drugs with your doctor. Learn more at Hormone Therapy to Treat Cancer.

Risk-reducing or prophylactic surgery, or the removal of some tissues or organs to reduce the risk of breast cancer, is generally done only for those with an inherited genetic change that greatly increases risk, such as a harmful change in BRCA1 or BRCA2, or a very strong family history. The most common risk-reducing surgery for breast cancer is risk-reducing bilateral mastectomy. Learn more about Surgery to Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer.

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