['lizbeth]

http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/con...spc-027766.pdf

Female Breast
New cases:
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women worldwide with an estimated 1.4 million new cases in 2008. About half of these cases occured in economically developing countries.

Female breast cancer incidence rates varied internationally by more than 13-fold in 2008, ranging from 8.0 cases per 100,000 in Mongolia and Bhutan to 109.4 per 100,000 in Belgium (Figure 4). This may in part reflect low screening rates and incomplete reporting in developing countries. Rates were generally high in North America, Australia, and Northern and
Western Europe; intermediate in Eastern Europe; and low in
large parts of Africa and Asia (with the exception of Israel).

Deaths:
An estimated 458,400 breast cancer deaths occurred in women in 2008. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among womenworldwide.

Global trends:
Between 1980 and the late 1990s, breast cancer incidence rates rose approximately 30% in westernized countries because of changes in reproductive patterns and more recently because of increased screening.
26

However, incidence rates in the United States decreased between 1999 and 2006, in part due to lower use of postmenopausal combined hormone therapy.27-29

Similar trends have also been noted in other Western countries
including the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
30-32

Breast cancer incidence rates have been rising in many African and
Asian countries including Japan, where rates increased more than 140% in the Miyagi registry during the time period 1973-1977 through 1998-2002, and India, where rates increased 40% in the Chennai registry between 1983-1987 and 1998-2002. 33

Reasons for these rising trends are not completely understood but
likely reflect changes in reproductive patterns, obesity, physical inactivity, 34 and some breast cancer screening activity. Although
breast cancer incidence rates continued to increase through the
late 1990s, breast cancer mortality over the past 25 years has been
stable or decreasing in some North American and European
countries (Figure 5). These reductions have been attributed to early
detection through mammography and improved treatment. 26