Breast cancer mortality now down by two-thirds

Breast cancer mortality rates have gone down by two-thirds (66%) in the past two decades, and now more than 90% of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer will survive for five years or more, research has highlighted.

A study funded by Cancer Research UK and led by oncologist Dr David Dodwell, from the University of Oxford’s Department of Population Health, tracked 512,447 women diagnosed between 1993 and 2015 to monitor their mortality rate.

This found that women in England diagnosed with early breast cancer today are 66% less likely to die from the disease within the first five years than they were 20 years ago.

“The prognosis for patients with breast cancer has improved,” said Dr Dodwell. “And that improvement is dramatic.”

In the late 1990s, the average five-year risk of dying after being diagnosed in the early stages of the disease was one in seven. By comparison, now it is one in 20.

“Our general feeling that things are getting better has been confirmed,” said Dr Dodwell. “And not only that: we can probably be more optimistic than we had dared to hope.”

The study, published in the BMJ, has been the first of its size to follow up patients with breast cancer for an extended period, and to map out how detailed characteristics of specific patients and their cancers relate to different outcomes.

“Our study can be used to estimate risk for individual women in the clinic today,” added Professor Carolyn Taylor, consultant clinical oncologist and professor of oncology, also at Oxford University, and lead author of the study.

“It gives doctors the data they need to make predictions, or prognoses, for women diagnosed with early breast cancer. These prognoses can help women understand their situation and plan their futures,” she said.