Breast Cancer Statistics

The following is adapted from information available from the American Cancer Society (ACS).

• Excluding cancers of the skin, breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among U.S. women, accounting for more than 1 in 4 cancers.

• Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer.

• One out of eight American women who live to be 85 years of age will develop breast cancer, a risk that was one out of 14 in 1960.

• 2.4 million women living in the U.S. have been diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer.

• An estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in American women during 2009. About 1,910 new cases of breast cancer are expected in men. In addition, an estimated 62,280 cases of in situ breast cancer (both DCIS and LCIS) are expected, with 85 percent being DCIS.

• An estimated 40,610 breast cancer deaths are anticipated this year (40,170 women, 440 men).

• The greatest risk factor for developing breast cancer is gender (female) and the second is age. Between 2000-2004, 95 percent of new cases and 97 percent of breast cancer deaths occurred in women aged 40 and older.

• The risk of developing breast cancer increases for women whose parent, sibling or child have had the disease.

• Patients with private insurance from all racial/ethnic groups are more likely to be diagnosed with stage I breast cancer and less likely to be diagnosed with stage III and IV than those who were uninsured or who had Medicaid insurance. While 89 percent of patients with private insurance survived five years, only 77 percent of uninsured and 75 percent of Medicaid patients passed the five year mark.
• It has been estimated that 5 percent to 10 percent of breast cancer cases result from inherited mutations or alterations in BRCA1 and BRCA2.

• Women who begin menstruating before age 12 are at increased risk of developing breast cancer. The more menstrual cycles a woman has during her lifetime, the more her risk increases.

• Other risk factors include inherited mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, a personal or family history of breast cancer, high breast tissue density, high-dose radiation to the chest wall, long menstrual history, never having given birth or giving birth for the first time after age 30, and biopsy-confirmed atypical hyperplasia.

• The ACS states that after continuously increasing for more than two decades, female breast cancer incidence rates decreased by 2.2 percent per year from 1999-2005. One possible reason for the change is that millions of women stopped taking menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), also known as hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Another possible reason is mammography rates decreased slightly from 70.1 percent in 2000 to 66.4 percent in 2005.

Information from Cancer Facts & Figures 2009, American Cancer Society and Breast Cancer Facts and Figures 2007-2008, American Cancer Society.

** All information courtesy of Breast Cancer Network of Strength.