I feel I am high risk due to radiation exposure as teen

kibbles, I think Barbe is probably right, although it does depend somewhat on how long ago you had the Xrays.  As late as the 50's, Xray machines (flouroscopes) delivered a lot more radiation than they do today, because physicists really didn't know how damaging they could be.  I think once the cobalt radiotherapy machine was developed (late 50's, by Canadian scientists) for cancer therapy, they started to recalibrate the amount of radiation that could safely be delivered in a regular Xray..

When I was a child being fitted for shoes, there was this neat flouroscope machine in every shoe store which Xrayed your feet to make sure your shoes would fit!  I loved looking down through the scope and seeing my foot bones!  When I grew up, I always had a feeling I might develop foot cancer!!  So, I got bc instead

But don't worry  The very fact that you're a woman puts you at risk;10 childhood chest Xrays probably doesn't make you any higher at risk.

Cheers! Linda

AnnNYC...VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE! In the late 50's, I was 12, and became very ill. Because my TB test were positive they thought I had TB. I was in the hospital for about a month. I was constantly taken to radiology for x-rays. And that's when the X-Ray machines were older. After leaving the hospital I had to go back for more x-rays..even years later I was x-rays for the spot on my lungs. Fifty years later I was dx with breast cancer. I've told this to my surgeons and they didn't seem to think it had anything with my recent dx.

The article also answered questions about radiation for older women.

I never thought I was high risk until recently. I have so many high risks factors. Just interesting.

B Barry  

I can't believe those numbers! It can't be right....who told you?

I wondered if my breast cancer was related to radiation exposure from a cardiac catheterization I had at age 14.  I remember watching the fluoroscopy image with fascination as they did the procedure.  I also felt bad about going 5 years without a mammogram from age 38 to 43.  Then my sister was diagnosed a year after I was, my sister who had no radiation exposure, whose breast cancer was diagnosed 9 months after a negative mammogram, who had her first child before 30.

My sister and I developing cancer, a year apart, both at age 43, made me realize how complex breast cancer formation is.  I am BRCA 1,2  negative. Do we have an unknown genetic propensity, were we exposed to a carcinogen as a child, who knows?

US News and world report (May 30, 2008) : one chest CT is 10 millisieverts of radiation, one chest X Ray, 0.02 millisieverts of radiation

 Donna

According to this article from the Harvard Medical School, it is true that a CT scan is the equivalent of 500 chest x-rays.  But that's largely because there is so little radiation exposure from a chest x-ray (using current technology of course - this likely was different back in the '50s and '60s).  Similarly, this article indicates that a mammogram exposes you to 35 times more radiation than a chest x-ray, but a CT scan exposes you to 14 times more radiation than a mammogram.  https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Heart_Letter/2009/April/Radiation-in-medicine-A-double-edged-sword?utm_source=heart&utm_medium=pressrelease&utm_campaign=heart0409

Here's another source of data on radiation levels by type of test.  According to this source, a CT scan has only 100 times more radiation than an x-ray.  The reason for the different number vs. the previous report is that this source indicates that a chest x-ray provides 0.1mSv of radiation, vs. the Harvard article saying that a chest x-ray provides 0.02mSv of radiation. Both articles put the radiation from a mammogram at 0.7mSv and both put the radiation from a CT scan at 10mSv.  http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/safety/index.cfm?pg=sfty_xray#2

barry, to your comment/question, estrogen exposure does increase the risk of beast cancer.  That's why when BC risk is assessed, the questions asked include "at what age did you start your periods?", "at what age did you enter menopause?" and "how many children did you have?"  Each of those factors is relevant because it influences the amount of exposure that you had to estrogen.  Those who started their period early, entered menoapause late and had fewer children are at greater risk of BC because they had more periods over their lifetime, and therefore, more exposure to estrogen.  This is also why use of birth control pills and HRT are considered possible risk factors for BC, because they increase the amount of estrogen exposure.  It's true that younger women have more estrogen in their bodies, but the reason why older women are at higher risk of BC is because the effect is cumulative, over your lifetime.  So while a younger woman may have more estrogen in her body, an older woman has accumulated a greater exposure to estrogen over her lifetime.  This risk from the accumulation of exposure to estrogen also gets coupled with the natural failure of our bodies as we age, and that's why older women have a greater risk of breast cancer than younger women.

Some info on this from this website:   Estrogen has many different functions, including helping you develop dense, strong bones. It's good to have strong bones (and other good things that estrogen helps to provide, like lower cholesterol and a sense of well-being), but it's best not to have the breast-cell growth stimulation that goes along with the higher estrogen levels.  Some studies have shown that elderly women with high bone mineral density (strong bones) have an increased risk of breast cancer, particularly advanced cancer. This has led to rumors about dense breasts and dense bones causing breast cancer. But it's not the extra thickness of the breasts or the thickness of the bones that causes an increased risk of breast cancer. Relatively high estrogen levels in the body probably produce all three things: denser breasts, stronger bones, AND a higher risk of breast cancer.  http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/hormonal/what_is_it/hormone_role.jsp