If I Have Had Breast Cancer Before, How Likely Am I to Get it Again?

— -- Question: If I have had breast cancer before, how likely am I to get it again?

Answer: Having a first breast cancer is actually a risk factor for having a second breast cancer. And we tell our patients that over a period of about 20 years after a diagnosis of a first breast cancer, a woman has about a 15 to 20 percent chance of being diagnosed with a second breast cancer. So it's not at all certain that a second breast cancer will occur, but the likelihood of being diagnosed with a second breast cancer increases over the risk of the average woman developing her first breast cancer.

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