Breast cancer deaths falling
Group’s report forecasts 40,170 fatal cases in ’09
LOS ANGELES - US breast cancer deaths have declined about 2 percent a year since 1990, according to the American Cancer Society.
Its report estimates 192,370 women will be diagnosed with the disease in 2009 and 40,170 will die from it. Only lung cancer accounts for more cancer deaths in women.
Death rates in black women have started to fall at the same rate as those for Caucasians, but remain 40 percent higher.
Based on the latest data, survival rates for women with breast cancer are:
■ 89 percent at five years after diagnosis.
■ 82 percent after 10 years.
■ 75 percent after 15 years.
The incidence of breast cancer has gone through five distinct phases, according to the report. Between 1975, when the ACS first began collecting data, and 1980, the incidence of new cases was essentially constant. Between 1980 and 1987, it grew by an average of 4 percent per year, largely as a result of the growing use of mammography, which detects tumors earlier than physical examination. Between 1987 and 1994, the incidence remained constant.
Starting in 1994, however, the incidence began to grow by 1.6 percent per year. Many experts attribute this to the expanding use of hormone replacement therapy, which was shown in 2002 to increase the risk of breast cancer.
Between 1999 and 2006, the most recent year for which data are available, the incidence declined by an average of 2 percent per year. That was driven by a sharp decrease between 2002 and 2003, when many women stopped using hormone replacement therapy.
Some of the declining incidence may also be attributable to decreased use of mammography during the period.
