Incidence

• Except for skin cancers, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed  cancer among women in the U.S.¹ 
• An estimated 192,370 new cases (27 percent of all cases) of invasive breast cancer are expected to occur among women in the U.S. during 2009.¹  
• An estimated 1,910 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in men in the U.S. in 2009.¹
• In addition to invasive breast cancer, 62,280 new cases of in situ breast cancer are expected to occur among women in the U.S. during 2009. Of these, about 85 percent will be ductal carcinoma in situ.¹ 
• In the U.S., female breast cancer incidence rates decreased by 2.2 percent per year from 1999-2005.  It is thought that the decrease may be due to reduction in use of postmenopausal hormone use. It also may be a result of reduced mammography use, which may delay diagnosis.¹ 
• One woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes, and one woman will die of breast cancer every 13 minutes in the U.S. 

Screening

• According to the National Health Interview Survey, mammography rates in women 40 and older in the U.S. decreased from 70.1 percent in 2000 to 66.5 percent in 2005 ²
  
• In the U.S., white women age 40 and older were more likely to report a mammogram in the past two years (68/1 percent) than any other racial or ethnic group. Screening rates were 66.6 percent for American Indian/Alaska native, 64.9 percent in African American, 59.6 percent in Hispanic and 54.2 percent in Asian women.²
• In the U.S., the lowest prevalence (33.2 percent) of mammography screening in the past two years occurred among women who do not have health insurance, followed by immigrant women who have lived in the U.S. for less than 10 years (50 percent).²
• Only 51.2 percent of women 40 and older in the U.S. reported having a mammogram in the last year.²
• Mammography will detect about 80-90 percent of breast cancers in women without symptoms.²
• Recent studies suggest that many women in the U.S. are getting their first mammogram later than recommended, not having mammograms at recommended intervals or not receiving appropriate and timely follow-up of positive screening results. This may lead to more advanced tumor size and stage at diagnosis.²

Mortality

• Breast cancer is second only to lung cancer in cancer deaths among women in the U.S.¹
• An estimated 40,170 women (15 percent of all deaths) in the U.S. will die from breast cancer in 2009.¹
• An estimated 440 men in the U.S. will die from breast cancer in 2009.¹
• In the U.S., breast cancer death rates have steadily decreased since 1990.
  • Death rates decreased by 3.2 percent per year among women younger then
    50 and by 2 percent per year among women 50 and older.
  • Decline in mortality likely due to improvements in treatment and early detection.¹

Survival

• Currently, there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors alive in the U.S. today.³
• The 5-year survival rate for female breast cancer survivors in the U.S. has improved from 63 percent in the early 1960s to 89 percent today.¹
• The relative survival rates for women diagnosed with breast cancer in the U.S. are:
  • 89 percent at 5 years after diagnosis
  • 81 percent after 10 years
  • 74 percent after 15 years¹
• For all races, the five-year relative survival rate for women with localized breast cancer (cancer that has not spread to lymph nodes or other locations outside the breast) in the U.S. is 98 percent.¹
• Today in the U.S., 61 percent of breast cancers are diagnosed at a local stage, where the five-year survival rate is 98 percent.²
  
• In the U.S., the five-year survival rate for regional disease is 84 percent and 27 percent for distant-stage disease.¹

Age

• Aside from being a woman, age is the most important risk factor.¹
• A woman’s chance of developing breast cancer increases with age. In the U.S., a woman has about a 12 percent, or 1 in 8, lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. ⁴  

Risk Factors

• The most proven and significant risk factors for getting breast cancer are being female and getting older.¹
• Approximately five to ten percent of breast cancers in the U.S. are due to inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 breast cancer genes (less than 1 percent of the general population).¹

1. Cancer Facts and Figures 2009, ACS
2. Cancer Prevention and Early Detection Facts and Figures 2009, ACS
3. ACS Website-http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_are_the_key_
statistics_for_breast_cancer_5.asp?sitearea
4. NCI Website- http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Detection/probability-breast-cancer