Breast cancer is by far the most frequent cancer in the world among women with an estimated 1.38 million new cancer cases diagnosed in 2008 (23% of all cancers) and ranks second overall (10.9% of all cancers). It is now the most common cancer both in developed and developing regions with around 690000 new cases estimated in each region (population ratio 1:4).
Incidence rates vary from 19.3 per 100000 women in Eastern Africa to 89.9 per 100000 women in Western Europe and are high (greater than 80 per 100000) in developed regions of the world (except Japan) and low (less than 40 per 100000) in most of the developing regions.
[i]Australia’s rate is 84.8 per 100000 (the second highest after Western Europe – compare this with China’s rate of 21.6 per 100000 and India’s 22.9 per 100000).[/i]
The range of mortality rates is much less (approximately 6-19 per 100000) because of the more favorable survival of breast cancer in (high-incidence) developed regions. As a result breast cancer ranks as the fifth cause of death from cancer overall (458 000 deaths) but it is still the most frequent cause of cancer death in women in both developing (268 000 deaths 12.7% of total) and developed regions.
[i]Australia’s mortality rate is 14.7 per 100000 (14.7/84.8 or 17.3% of those with breast cancer) (compared with 5.7 per 100000 for China).I think this is per 100000 of population not of population with breast cancer. I think this means China’s mortality is so much lower than ours because their cancer rate is so much lower than ours but that among women who do have breast cancer in China the mortality rate is higher. 5.7/21.6 = 26.4% a higher mortality rate among those in China with breast cancer. India is also interesting with a 46% mortality rate among women with breast cancer.[/i]