One in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. OSF HealthCare St. Mary and Holy Family Medical Centers Director of Diagnostic Imaging Mary Mowen shares some stats as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month:
“The incidence of breast cancer just continues to rise. It rises at a slow rate, but a half a percent per year. We are going to find almost 300,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer in 2023 and we are going to have about 44,000 breast cancer deaths. The good news about breast cancer deaths is that rates are down about 43% since 1989 and the rates continue to go down slowly, that is because we can help find cancers earlier and also better treatment is available. 75% of women that are diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history or other risk factors. It doesn’t even discriminate with male and female. The incidence of men having breast cancer is much smaller than women, but there are 2,800 breast cancer diagnoses expected this year for men.”
Mowen adds there are currently more than four million breast cancer survivors in the United States.
