Breast Cancer - Facts and Stats

Diagnosis & Survival
In the last 25 years the number of breast cancer diagnosis' has increased by 50%, in the last 10 female breast cancer incidence rates in the UK have increased by 3.6%, now making breast cancer the most common type of cancer.

In just a year NHS breast screening programmes have detected 16,000 cases of breast cancer.

In 2008 47,700 women in the UK were diagnosed with breast cancer, thats 130 women diagnosed each day, and the numbers have only increased since. In this year also the world wide figure for women diagnosed with this cancer was a shocking 1.38 million.

It is rarely recognised that men have been and continue to be diagnosed with breast cancer as well as women, though it is a rare occurence in comparison - 341 men in the UK were also diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008.

The highest rates of breast cancer incidences are in Western Europe. The lowest are in Africa and Asia.

Whilst cancer rates have increased there has also been great innovations in the treatment of cancer, and therefore huge increases in cancer survivors. With a rising in cancer survivors over 40 years things have only gotten better and there are more women survivng cancer then ever before - with almost two out of three women alive 10 years after diagnosis which is double the 10-year survival rate for patients diagnosed 40 years ago.

It's estimated that the NHS breast screening programme saves over 1,000 lives each year.

These are massive improvements in comparison to the early days of any type of cancer discoveries - in the 1970s around 5 out of 10 women with breast cancer survived the disease beyond five years. Now it's more than 8 out of 10. And women are now twice as likely to survive breast cancer than in past years.

And of course, the earlier the cancer is discovered the more chance of surviving it, or prolonging life after diagnosis.

Breast Cancer Screening - Mammography is used to screen for breast cancer - this is a process by which x-ray imaging is used as a non invasive exmaination to screen for breast cancer.
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