Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Chronic Disease
Prevention and Health Promotion Division of Cancer
Prevention (NBCCEDP)
indicates in 2005, 186,467 women were diagnosed with
breast cancer and 41,116 women died
from the disease.1
Based on recent estimates, more than $8.4 billion per
year (in 2004 dollars) is spent in the
United States on
the treatment of breast cancer.2
However, in terms of new cases of breast cancer, an
estimated 182,460 new cases of invasive breast cancer
are expected to occur among women in the US during 2008;
about 1,990 new cases are expected in men. Excluding
cancers of the skin, breast cancer is the most
frequently diagnosed cancer in women. After continuously
increasing for more than two decades, female breast
cancer incidence rates decreased by 3.5% per year from
2001-2004. This decrease may reflect reduced use of
hormone replacement therapy (HRT) following the
publication of results from the Women’s Health
Initiative in 2002, which linked HRT use to increased
risk of heart diseases and breast cancer. It may also
reflect a slight drop in mammography utilization;
according to the National Health Interview Survey,
mammography rates in the past two years in women 40 and
older decreased from 70.1% in 2000 to 66.4% in 2005.
In program year 2007, the NBCCEDP screened 295,338 women
for breast cancer with mammography and found 3,962
breast cancers. CDC references the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2010 goals,
which includes reducing the breast cancer death rate by
20%.
References
1 U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group. United States
Cancer Statistics: 1999–2005 Incidence and Mortality
Web-based Report. Atlanta, GA: Department of Health and
Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention; Washington, DC: National Cancer Institute;
2009. Available at
www.cdc.gov/uscs.
2 National Cancer Institute. Cancer Trends Progress
Report—2007 Update. Bethesda, MD: U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, National Institutes of
Health. Available at
http://progressreport.cancer.gov.
In 2004 dollars, based on methods described in Medical
Care 2002;40(8Suppl):IV-104–117.
http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/
