502 000 death worldwide in 2005, a dramatic increase since the seventies, and it seems our modern lifestyle is to blame since the incidence of breast cancer is higher in the most developed countries of the western world. And yet breast cancer is not a new illness... it actually stands among the oldest form of tumors known to men. Proofs have been found that it plagued women as far back as Ancient Egypt, over three thousand years in the past. An old foe... increasingly threatening. Sometimes surgery is the only treatment for cancer but there are alternatives, such as cancer radiation therapy if the illness is identified at the earliest stages of cancer . The causes of cancer are unclear, it will strike women with no risk factor other than their age and gender... When reaching fifty years of age, every woman should become more attentive to the signs and symptoms of breast cancer and regularly see her doctor. Hopefully, extensive medical research will lead to improved cancer survival rates in the near future, but for now early treatment is still the best option for women to defeat the ancient enemy.