Since the first Breast Cancer Awareness Month initiatives kicked off 40 years ago, major improvements have been made in treating the disease.
While the rates of women diagnosed with breast cancer have increased, death rates have been declining, and five-year survival rates have risen.
Additionally, most breast cancer cases are being diagnosed in early stages before the disease has spread, making it easier to treat.
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“It’s so exciting to be someone treating breast cancer because we can see that our treatments and improvements in treatments are actually making women live longer on average,” Dr. Julia McGuinness, an assistant professor of medicine within the division of hematology/oncology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, told ABC News.
Here’s a look at the progress made in the fight against breast cancer.
Declining death rates
Breast cancer death rates were relatively steady during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, but have been steadily declining since 1989, aside from a few years with upticks.
In 1975, there were 31.45 breast cancer deaths per 100,000 women, according to data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program under the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
By 2023, this had declined to 18.55 deaths per 100,000 women, the data shows.
ABC Chart Illustration / National Cancer Institute – SEER – PHOTO: U.S. Female Breast Cancer Death Rates 1975-2023
McGuinness said that cancer being caught at earlier stages has led to more women receiving treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation sooner, which can reduce the chances of recurrence.
“It’s a very encouraging trend to see that even though more women are being diagnosed with breast cancer, on average, they’re living longer, and fewer women treated for early breast cancer will have their cancer recur,” she said.
Improving five-year survival rates
There have also been improvements in five-year relative survival percentages for breast cancer patients. This figure looks at the percentage of those who lived five years after they were diagnosed with or started treatment for a disease.
In 1975, the five-year relative survival percentage was 76.16%, according to data from the NCI’s SEER Program. In 2017, the latest year for which data is available, this improved to 93.2%.
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“Our treatments have also improved dramatically and, even in the past decade, we’ve seen approvals for drugs that are making women with metastatic breast cancer live, on average, several years longer than they were even a decade ago,” McGuinness said.
These treatments include the introduction of anti-estrogen therapy several decades ago and more recent targeted therapies like immunotherapy, she said.
There have been “a lot of other new, exciting treatments — both in pill form and intravenous form — that have dramatically changed how we treat breast cancer at all stages, and also have prolonged the survival of women who have metastatic breast cancer,” McGuinness added.
ABC News Illustration / National Cancer Institute – SEER – PHOTO: U.S. Female Breast Cancer 5-Year Relative Survival Rates
Breast cancer cases being caught before spread
Recent data show that female breast cancer cases are being caught at early stages, before the disease has metastasized.
Between 2018 and 2022, two-thirds of female breast cancer cases were diagnosed at a localized stage, meaning the cancer was contained to the breast, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
About 25% of female breast cancer cases were found at the regional stage, meaning the cancer had spread to nearby lymph nodes, tissues, or organs, and 6% were found at a distant stage, meaning the cancer had spread to distant parts of the body, CDC data shows.
McGuinness said that screening for breast cancer has dramatically improved over the past four decades.
ABC Chart Illustration / CDC – PHOTO: Where U.S. Female Breast Cancer Cases are Diagnosed 2018-2022
“Mammography screening programs were introduced in the 1970s and, since then, more women are engaged in screening mammograms, which improves our chances of catching breast cancer at an early stage that is more easily treatable with a lower chance of coming back,” she said.
She added that she is hopeful improvements will continue to be made so more cases are being caught at earlier stages, leading to improved survival rates and lower death rates.
“We’re constantly — even every month, even every week — moving the needle towards better outcomes,” McGuinness said. “I think the really beautiful thing about treating breast cancer is that we have so many options, and it really becomes a discussion with patients about the right options for them. I know that we’ll continue to improve outcomes with ongoing research.”
