Breast Cancer Foundation of Western Australia

Breast Health

Breast Cancer Statistics

Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer diagnosed in females in Australia. It is also the leading cause of cancer related death in females.

Incidence Rates

  • Currently 36 women in Australia are diagnosed with breast cancer every day.
  • The number of women diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia increased from 5,318 in 1983 to 12,027 in 2002. It is projected that there will be 13,261 women diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and 14,818 in 2011.
  • Breast cancer is the most common cancer experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, but the incidence rate is lower than for the non-Indigenous population.
  • Breast cancer in males is rare. The number of new cases of breast cancer in males per year increased from 43 in 1983 to 84 in 2002.
  • The average age of first diagnosis was 60 years for a woman and 66 years for a man in 2002.
  • One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia by the age of 85.

Mortality Rates

  • A woman’s risk of dying from breast cancer before the age of 85 has been declining, from a 1 in 29 risk in 1983 to a 1 in 36 risk in 2004.
  • There were 2,641 female deaths and 20 male deaths due to breast cancer in 2004.
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women had 9% higher rates of breast cancer mortality than the Australian female population as a whole, based on age-standardised rates for the 2000–2004 period for Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Northern Territory registered deaths.
  • Australia’s death rate from breast cancer was lower than the rates for New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States of America.

Survival

  • For women, there was a significant increase in relative survival after diagnosis of breast cancer between 1982–1986 and 1998–2002. One-year relative survival increased from 93.2% to 96.7% and five-year relative survival increased from 70.9% to 86.6%.

Local Statistics

  • Around 1100 women and 9 men were diagnosed with breast cancer in Western Australia in 2004.
  • Around 220 women and 1 man died from the disease in WA.

Sources

  • Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing and the National Breast Cancer Centre
    Breast cancer in Australia: An Overview, 2006
  • The Western Australian Cancer Registry
    Last available figures – 2004

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