Wellness & Healthy Living

  What's in a risk assessment score? Experts explain the promise and pitfalls. If you could learn your individual odds of developing breast cancer over the next five years — as well as your lifetime risk — would you want to know? There’s a way to make that happen. Called a breast cancer risk assessment score, the tool is readily accessible through your primary care doctor or gynecologist. Women’s overall odds of breast cancer are oft-quoted. According to the American Cancer Society, one in eight of us will develop the disease over the course of our lives. But some women want to get more precise than that — or want to try — and wonder if a risk calculator can accomplish that. Available in about two dozen different models, these individualized tools ask users about myriad factors that influence breast cancer risk. These include age, race, ethnicity, family history of breast cancer, age at first period, age at menopause, and how old a woman was the first time she gave birth (if she ha...