Breast Cancer Incidence rate rises while death rate falls


Age-standardised incidence of and mortality from female breast cancer, England and Wales, Rate per 100,000

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in England and Wales. In 2000 there were almost 36,000 new cases diagnosed, 30 per cent of all cancers in women and a rate of 114 per 100,000 women.

Around 11,500 women died from breast cancer in England and Wales in 2002, a rate of 30 per 100,000 women. It is the most common cause of cancer death in women.

One in nine women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives. Most of the known risk factors for breast cancer relate to a woman’s reproductive history such as early first period, late first pregnancy, low parity and late menopause. Oral contraceptive use, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), obesity and increased alcohol consumption also increase the risk.

Four in five new cases are diagnosed in women over the age of 50, with the peak in the distribution of new cases in the 50 to 54 age group. This peak is largely a result of the breast screening programme because many of these women will have been screened for the first time.

The breast screening programme was introduced in 1988 with the aim of reducing the number of women dying from breast cancer. At present, breast screening is offered every three years to all women aged between 50 and 64, and to women aged 65 and over on request. By 2004, this will be extended to women in England aged 65 to 70, and to women over 70 on request. In 2001, three quarters of the women invited from the target population in the United Kingdom underwent screening for breast cancer; over 1.5 million women are screened each year.

Incidence rates have continued their upward trend, increasing by 70 per cent since 1971, and by 15 per cent in the ten years to 2000.

Earlier detection and improved treatment has meant that survival rates have risen. Five year survival was 73 per cent for women diagnosed in 1991-95, and 78 per cent for women diagnosed in 1996-99. Survival from breast cancer is better than that for cervical cancer and much better than for the other major cancers in women - lung, colorectal and ovarian.

Death rates gradually increased up to the mid 1980s and then began to fall around the time that screening started. By 1998 mortality was around 20 per cent lower than it would have been (based on predictions of pre-screening rates in various age groups). Falls occurred in all age groups, but were greatest in women aged 55 to 69.