YOU SHOULD KNOW

2008 Breast Cancer Facts – United States

• Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women.
• The most proven and significant risk factors for getting breast cancer are being female and getting older.
• An estimated 182,460 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women in the U.S. during 2008.
• An estimated 1,990 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in men in the U.S. during 2008.
• An estimated 40,480 women and 450 men will die from breast cancer in the U.S. during 2008.
• In the U.S., a woman has a 1 in 8 (12 percent) risk of developing breast cancer in her lifetime.
• One woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes, and one woman will die of breast cancer every 13 minutes in the U.S.
• The five-year survival rate for breast cancer, when caught early before it spreads beyond the breast, is now 98 percent (compared to 74 percent in 1982).
• Approximately 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers are due to heredity. The majority of women with breast cancer have no known significant family history or other known risk factors.
• A woman’s chance of developing breast cancer increases with age. Approximately 95 percent of all breast cancers occur in women 40 years of age and older.
• Breast cancer is second only to lung cancer in cancer deaths among women.
• The chance of a woman dying from breast cancer is about 1 in 33 (3 percent).
• African Americans have the highest death rate from breast cancer of any racial/ethnic group in the U.S.
• In the United States today, there are nearly 2.5 million breast cancer survivors – the largest group of cancer survivors in the country.

For more information on breast cancer, visit the About Breast Cancer section on www.komen.org