Breast cancer rates rose by 1% a year from 2012–2021 for all American women combined, but steeper increases were seen for women under 50 and Asian American and Pacific Islander women, according to the American Cancer Society, which released its biennial report in October 2024 on the state of the disease in the nation. The Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024–2025 report is an educational companion for " Breast Cancer Statistics, 2024 ," a paper published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians . Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, second only to lung cancer .
Overall mortality rates , however, have fallen by 44% since 1989 because of advances in treatment and earlier detection. But the new figures also show there remain significant racial and ethnic disparities. There has, for instance, been no change in mortality rates for Native American women over the past 30 years.
And Black women have a 5% lower incidence rate than white women but are 38% more likely to die from the disease, a trend of divergence that began after 1980 . Laura Collins, a physician who specializes in breast pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a professor at Harvard Medical School, spoke to the Gazette about the report and its findings. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Did anything in the latest report surprise you? The piece of the report that caught the headlines was the increasing incidence found for breast cancer in young women. It.