How common is breast cancer?

Breast cancer is the most common cancer to affect women.

There is an increasing incidence worldwide with over one million new cases diagnosed each year.

In the USA, an estimated 212,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed each year, along with 61,000 new cases of non-invasive breast cancer. Almost 41,000 women are expected to die annually from this disease.

In the UK there are approximately 35,000 new breast cancers diagnosed and 14 500 deaths due to breast cancer each year.

In New Zealand approximately 2400 new cases are diagnosed each year and 600 women die from this disease.