Breast cancer is hitting younger women. An NYU Langone oncologist says don’t wait to get checked.

The pink ribbon has made a difference, says Dr. Elizabeth Comen. Now, as Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets underway, the NYU Langone breast oncologist wants the message to reach the women it has missed, including a growing number who are under 50. “I actually think that pink ribbon has done a lot,” said Comen, a medical oncologist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and co-director of the hospital’s Mignone Women’s Health Collaborative. Comen acknowledged concerns about “pinkwashing,” when companies cash in on the cause without the money reaching research. But she credited groups like the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Susan G. Komen with driving philanthropy “that has been behind almost every major advance” in the field. The results show up in the data. U.S. breast cancer death rates have fallen 44% since peaking in 1989, averting an estimated 546,000 deaths, according to a 2024 American Cancer Society’s annual report. Comen credits both better screening and better tr