Breast Cancer Mortality Rates Decline In Many Countries

Breast cancer mortality rates continue to decline in many nations, but a review of mortality trends in 47 countries around the world indicates some significant disparities, particularly in South Korea and some Latin American nations, according to results presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held Dec. 6-10.

“Breast cancer is by far the primary cancer site in women and, worldwide, represents a quarter of all cancers in women,” said the study’s lead author, Cécile Pizot, MSc, at the International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, France. “Comparing mortality trends between countries helps identify which health care systems have been the most efficient at reducing breast cancer mortality.”

In this study, Pizot and colleagues extracted information on breast cancer deaths from the World Health Organization database and calculated mortality rates over the years 1987-2013, stratifying results according to age groups.

Overall, breast cancer mortality declined in 39 out of 47 countries, including the United States and most developed European nations. England and Wales had the sharpest drop in mortality, with a 46 percent decline. Pizot said this trend was to be expected, due to advances in detection and treatment over the past few decades.

Latin American nations experienced scattered increases in mortality; for example, Brazil and Colombia saw mortality rates increase in women of all age groups, while in Argentina and Chile mortality rates decreased in all women.

South Korea had the most dramatic increase in breast cancer mortality, with an 83 percent increase overall and higher mortality in every age group. However, the breast cancer mortality rate is still lower than the rate in the United States (5.3 per 100,000 women in South Korea compared with 14 per 100,000 women in the United States in the 2011-2013 period).

“South Korea has experienced major societal changes since the 1950s and quickly evolved from an agricultural, developing country to a highly industrialized and Westernized country,” Pizot said. “Such quick changes might explain the considerable shift in cancer mortality.”