There is some good news about breast cancer rates dropping, but it's not good news for everyone. Death rates from breast cancer may be dropping, but African American women and women of other minority racial and ethnic groups have not benefited as much as Caucasian women. According to a new report from the American Cancer Society white women benefit more from the advances in early detection and treatment, which has led to the decline in deaths. The report also shows that a recent drop in the diagnosis of new cancers is partially because the number of women getting mammograms has gone down.

"While many women live in fear of breast cancer, this report shows a woman today has a lower chance of dying from breast cancer than she's had in decades," said Harmon J. Eyre, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "Unfortunately, not all women are benefiting at the same level. Perhaps most troubling is the striking divergence in long-term mortality trends seen between African American and white females that began in the early 1980s and that, by 2004, had led to death rates 36 percent higher in African American women."

Details of the major risk factors associated with breast cancer The report also details the major risk factors associated with breast that women can control are also detailed in the report and include obesity and weight gain during adulthood, which increases the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer.

Other factors include two alcoholic drinks a day, which may increase the risk by 21 percent; physical activity may have a small protective effect. It is also noted that most research finds no link between actively smoking, but the link between secondhand smoke and breast cancer remains debatable. The study was reported in "Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2007-2008.

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