9. d. The highest incidence of breast cancer is found in women over 50, not in women 40-50.

Eighty percent of breast cancers occur in women age 50 and older. Although many women die of breast cancer (approximately 44,000 in 1997), diagnosis is not a death sentence, stressed Marcelle Kaplan, MS, RN, breast oncology clinical nurse specialist at New York Presbyterian Hospital (New York Hospital-Cornell campus).

Through mammography, breast self-exam, and exams by healthcare professionals, breast cancer is being detected at very early stages, said Rebecca Crane, MN, RN, oncology nurse specialist at the Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Breast Center at the John Wayne Cancer Institute of Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif. In fact, the National Cancer Institute reports that 97.4 percent of women treated for localized breast cancer survive.