Breast Cancer Facts

Updated breast cancer statistics for 2024 from the National Breast Cancer Coalition can be found on their website at https://www.stopbreastcancer.org/information-center/facts-figures/.

(January 2022)

Wisconsin Statistics

Incidence

  • 5380 women are estimated to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2022
  • On average 1,175 additional women are diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) each year
  • From 2014-1018 the national incidence rate of breast cancer in women was 126.9 per 100,000. The rate in Wisconsin was higher: 132.9 per 100,000. The incidence rate for both the US and Wisconsin is rising

Mortality

  • 720 women are estimated to die from breast cancer in 2022
  • Wisconsin mortality rates for female breast cancer (2015-2019) are about 1.3 points lower than the national average (18.5 per 100,000 in Wisconsin, 19.9 per 100,000 in the US). Mortality rates for Black women are higher in both the US and Wisconsin (27.1 per 100,000)

Sources:
American Cancer Society, Cancer Statistics Center 2022 Estimates
National Cancer Institute, State Cancer Profiles

US Statistics

Incidence

  • 287,850 women and 2,710 men are estimated to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2022
  • 51,400 additional women are estimated to be diagnosed with DCIS

Mortality

  • 43,780 women and men are estimated to die from breast cancer in 2022

Source:
American Cancer Society, Key Statistics for Breast Cancer

More US Facts

    • The rate of metastatic breast cancer at initial diagnosis has not changed appreciably since 1975. There is no cure for metastatic breast cancer.
    • Breast cancer mortality rates peaked in 1989 and have been slowly on the decline since then. Female breast cancer death rates decreased 2.3 percent per year on average during 2003-2007, 1.6 percent during 2007-2014, and 1.0 percent during 2014-2018.
    • From 2004 to 2017, age-adjusted rates for new female breast cancer cases have been rising on average 0.5 percent each year. There is a 1 in 8 chance a woman in the US will be diagnosed with breast cancer (up from 1 in 11 in 1975).
    • The much advertised “5 year survival rate” is not a measure of progress. Survival rates are skewed by screening: the more you screen, the more you find. These women are all counted as being alive at 5 years, including women who are in treatment at 5 years and the sizable percentage of women whose cancer will recur after 5 years. Evidence suggests that many women would not have died within the first 5 year time frame, even if they had not been screened.
    • An estimated 20-30 percent of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer will have a recurrence.
    • About 85 percent of breast cancers occur in women who have no family history of breast cancer.
    • It is estimated that no more than 55 percent of breast cancer is explained by risk factors so far identified. The majority appear to be a combination of various physical, environmental and genetic factors.
    • An estimated 22-31 percent of all breast cancers (both invasive and DCIS) diagnosed by screening are considered to be over diagnosed and over treated. (The more we screen, the more we find, the more we treat – with a likelihood that many breast cancer might not have needed treatment.)

Sources
US Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, The Breast Cancer Landscape (October 2021)
National Breast Cancer Coalition, Breast Cancer Facts and Figures
breastcancer.org, US Breast Cancer Statistics

Bottom Line

Screening for breast cancer is necessary and the best tool we’ve got right now; however it does not PREVENT breast cancer, it only finds it, and finding it does not guarantee that a life has been saved.