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TL;DR
Breast cancer incidence is rising worldwide, most rapidly in developing countries adopting western lifestyles, while mortality has begun to decline in several high-resource countries with established screening and treatment improvements.
Breast Cancer Research · 3 authors, 2 centres
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Breast cancer incidence is rising worldwide, most rapidly in developing countries adopting western lifestyles, while mortality has begun to decline in several high-resource countries with established screening and treatment improvements.
The authors describe at least a 10-fold international variation in incidence rates, driven largely by reproductive, hormonal, and nutritional determinants rather than genetics, as demonstrated by migrant studies. In high-resource countries, mammographic screening has contributed to both incidence increases (from detection of prevalent cases) and subsequent mortality declines. Incidence trends show increasing rates in most countries with plateauing in some European nations during the mid-1990s. Mortality has declined from the early 1990s in several northern European countries and North America but continues to rise in eastern European and developing regions. The review highlights the need for primary prevention, early diagnosis, and equitable access to screening and treatment in developing countries.