Statistics

Breast cancer is complex and each person’s diagnosis is unique to them.

By the numbers:

Around 12% (1 in 8) women will develop some form of invasive cancer in the course of her lifetime.
There is an expected 268,600 new cases of invasive breast cancer diagnosis for 2019 for women in the United States, and 62,930 new cases of in situ (non-invasive) breast cancer diagnosis.
Breast cancer affects men as well as women.
There is an expected 2,670 new cases of invasive breast cancer diagnosis for men in 2019.

Decrease in Diagnosis:

The lifetime risk for a man for breast cancer is around 1 in 883.
Breast cancer rates were on the increase in the two decades prior to 2000.
As of 2000, the incident rates of breast cancer decreased.
2002-2003 showed a drop in breast cancer incidents by 7%.
The publication of the Women’s Health Initiative in 2002 showed the dramatic decrease in the used of HRT (hormone replacement therapy) by women and the results suggest a theory in the connection between HRT and breast cancer risk.

Breast Cancer Deaths:

Death rates from breast cancer have been decreasing since 1989.
Women under 50 years of age have experienced the greatest decrease in breast cancer deaths and it’s believed that this is due to a combination of treatment advances, increased awareness, and detection at earlier stages.
Around 41,760 women are expected to die in the U.S. from breast cancer.
In the U.S., skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer type, with breast cancer coming in next.
S. women have higher breast cancer death rates than those of any form of cancer, except lung cancer.

2019 Info:

The 2019 estimate is that nearing 30% of the cancers newly diagnosed in for U.S. women will be breast cancer.
For women under 45 years of age, African-American women have higher rate of breast cancer than Caucasian women and are more likely to die of breast cancer.
Asian, Hispanic, and Native-American women have a lower risk of developing and dying from breast cancer.
Data as of Jan., 2019 indicated that there are over 3.1 million women in the U.S. with a history of breast cancer, including those that are being treated now and those that have completed treatment.

Risk Factors:

The greatest risk factors for breast cancer are gender (being female) and aging.
If a woman has a first-degree relative (mother, sister, daughter) that has been diagnosed with breast cancer, they nearly double the risk of developing breast cancer.
Under 15% of women that develop breast cancer have a family member that was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Approximately 85% of breast cancer occurs in women without any family history of breast cancer.
Breast cancer in women without any family history of the disease state are believed to occur due to a result in life and the aging process rather than gene mutations that were inherited.
Gene mutations that are inherited from an individual’s biological parents are linked in only 5-10% of breast cancer diagnosis.
The most common gene mutations for breast cancer are the BRCA1 and BRCA2
There is an average of a 72% lifetime risk for breast cancer development for women with the BRCA1 gene mutation, with a 69% lifetime risk for those with the BRCA2 gene mutation.
Positive confirmation for either BRCA1 or BRCA2 breast cancer has a tendency to develop in younger women.
There is an additional risk factor with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations for ovarian cancer.
Men that have are positive for the BRCA2 mutation have a 6.8% lifetime risk factor for breast cancer.
There are less frequent associations of BRCA1 mutation associated breast cancer in men.