Experts has concern about breast cancer gone too far, prompting many women to neglect far more serious risks to their health and life, 1997 polls certainly suggest that. A New York Times/CBS News Poll found that 52 percent of women think that they are more likely to die of breast cancer than heart disease. And survey of 1,000 women 30 to 80 years old by Merck Media Minutes, a newsletter from Merck & Company, reported that the women ranked breast cancer as the leading risk to their health, above heart disease and lung cancer. But the facts say otherwise.

Heart disease is responsible for 30 percent of the deaths among American women. Breast cancer accounts for only 3 percent. And breast cancer is not even the leading killer among the cancers that strike American women. Lung cancer causes many more deaths among women, yet it does not come close to breast cancer when women are asked about their health concerns. The Merck survey showed that five times as many women listed breast cancer rather than lung cancer as health topic that interested them the most.

Of course, lung cancer rarely strikes before age 50, even among women who have been lifelong heavy smokers. Heart disease, too, is unlikely to kill women younger than 60, while breast cancer does sometimes strike women in their 30's and 40's. But premenopausal breast cancer is not nearly so common as most women seem to believe.

Breast cancer is primarily a disease of older women. By age 35, a woman has 1 chance in 622 of developing breast cancer. The risk rises to 1 in 93 by age 45, 1 in 33 by age 55 and 1 in 17 by age 65. The "one woman in eight" figure now frequently heard refers to the lifetime risk of breast cancer for a woman who lives beyond the age of 85. And while the incidence of breast cancer rose during the 1980's, it has leveled off in recent years, suggesting that the "epidemic," if there was one, has begun to wane.

Furthermore, breast cancer is not nearly so deadly as many women think. The death rate has been dropping lately, thanks largely to earlier detection and improved treatments. The five-year survival rate for women with localized breast cancer is now 97 percent (up from 72 percent in the 1940's). Even if cancer has spread to tissues surrounding breast, 76 percent of women will be alive five years later. Over all, including cases diagnosed in an advanced stage, 65 percent of women with breast cancer will survive for 10 years and 56 percent for 15 years.

But don't think I am callous about this disease. It took three of my friends in their early 40's, and two of them left behind young children. But a dozen other friends who had breast cancer are alive and well many years -- for some, decades -- after their cancers were discovered.