Breast cancer statistics can help caregivers understand the scale of the disease, the ages and groups most affected, and how diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes differ by stage and population. The figures below describe the United States unless another geography is named. Estimates and historical measurements are identified by their source and period.
On this page
- Lifetime risk and 10-year probabilities
- United States estimates for 2024
- Incidence and mortality patterns
- Stage and survival
- Differences by race and ethnicity
- Mammography statistics
- The global burden
Lifetime risk and 10-year probabilities
The American Cancer Society (ACS) Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 estimates that 13.1% of women in the United States will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. The same source estimates that 2.3% of women will die from breast cancer during their lifetime. These are population-level probabilities, not a prediction for any one person.
The 10-year probability of an invasive diagnosis rises through most of later adulthood. At age 20, the probability is 0.1%, or 1 in 1,344 women. At age 30, it is 0.5%, or 1 in 198. At age 40, it is 1.6%, or 1 in 62. At age 50, it is 2.5%, or 1 in 41. At age 60, it is 3.6%, or 1 in 28. At age 70, it is 4.2%, or 1 in 24. At age 80, it is 3.1%, or 1 in 32. These figures come from the ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 and refer to the 10 years following each stated age.
The corresponding 10-year probability of dying from breast cancer is under 0.1%, or 1 in 19,247, at age 20; under 0.1%, or 1 in 2,192, at age 30; 0.1%, or 1 in 723, at age 40; 0.3%, or 1 in 348, at age 50; 0.5%, or 1 in 217, at age 60; 0.7%, or 1 in 141, at age 70; and 1.0%, or 1 in 103, at age 80. The age-specific diagnosis and mortality probabilities should be read as separate measures.
United States estimates for 2024
The ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 estimated 310,720 new invasive breast cancers among women in the United States in 2024. About 16% of those new invasive cancers were expected in women younger than 50. The report also expected about 56,500 cases of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and 42,250 breast cancer deaths among women in the country.
More than half of the women expected to die from breast cancer in 2024 were age 70 or older. The age breakdown shows why caregivers may encounter very different needs across generations:
| Age group | Expected DCIS cases | Expected invasive cases | Expected deaths |
|---|---|---|---|
| Younger than 40 | 1,360 | 13,180 | 990 |
| 40–49 | 8,750 | 37,650 | 2,620 |
| 50–59 | 13,760 | 67,310 | 6,800 |
| 60–69 | 17,660 | 89,540 | 10,010 |
| 70–79 | 11,890 | 69,130 | 10,140 |
| 80 and older | 3,080 | 33,910 | 11,690 |
These are 2024 estimates, not a count of final observed cases or deaths. The totals and age-specific figures are reported by the ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025.
About 30% of breast cancer cases can be attributed to potentially modifiable risk factors, according to the same ACS report. BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic variations account for 5% to 10% of all female breast cancers and 15% to 20% of familial breast cancers. Those percentages describe contributions at the population level and do not determine an individual family’s risk.
Incidence and mortality patterns
The National Cancer Institute’s SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Female Breast Cancer reports a female breast cancer incidence rate of 132.5 per 100,000 women per year, based on SEER 21 data from 2019–2023. Female breast cancer was most frequently diagnosed among women aged 65–74. The female breast cancer death rate was 18.9 per 100,000 women per year based on data from 2020–2024.
SEER reports that female breast cancer incidence increased by an average of 0.7% per year during 2014–2023, while death rates fell by an average of 1.2% per year during 2015–2024. The ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 reports a broader historical trend: the breast cancer death rate has dropped 44% since 1989, a decline that averted approximately 517,900 deaths.
The incidence and mortality measures use different periods and should not be treated as a single-year comparison. Incidence measures new diagnoses; the death rate measures deaths in the population.
Stage and survival
SEER reports an overall 5-year relative survival rate of 91.9% for female breast cancer. Localized disease accounts for 64% of cases and has a 100.0% 5-year relative survival rate. Regional disease accounts for 27% of cases and has an 87.5% 5-year relative survival rate. Distant disease accounts for 6% of cases and has a 33.8% 5-year relative survival rate. The stage categories and survival figures are from SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Female Breast Cancer.
The ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 similarly reports that two-thirds, or 66%, of female breast cancer patients are diagnosed with localized-stage disease. Its historical survival figures show an increase from 77% in 1975–1997 to 93% in 2014–2020 for White women, and from 65% to 84% across those same periods for Black women. The survival gap between Black and White women peaked at 15 percentage points in the mid-1980s and remained 9 percentage points for women diagnosed in 2014–2020.
These are relative survival statistics for groups and time periods. They are useful for describing outcomes across populations, but they do not forecast an individual patient’s result.
Differences by race and ethnicity
SEER’s reported incidence rates per 100,000 women are 141.3 for White women, 132.4 for Black women, 107.9 for Hispanic women, 119.4 for non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native women, and 116.5 for non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander women. The SEER female breast cancer death rate for Black women is 25.9 per 100,000, the highest among the listed racial and ethnic groups.
The ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 gives a related range in its Figure 4: incidence ranged from 104.1 per 100,000 in Hispanic women to 137.9 per 100,000 in White women, while mortality ranged from 11.9 per 100,000 in Asian American/Pacific Islander women to 26.8 per 100,000 in Black women. These values come from the ACS figure and are not interchangeable with the SEER rates because the source definitions and reporting periods may differ.
The ACS report says that, in the most recent decade covered, incidence increased by about 1% per year in White, Black, and American Indian/Alaska Native women; by 1.6% per year in Hispanic women; and by 2.6% per year in Asian American/Pacific Islander women.
Stage at diagnosis also varied in the ACS stage-distribution chart. Localized-stage disease represented 68% for White women, 58% for Black women, 65% for American Indian/Alaska Native women, 60% for Asian American/Pacific Islander women, and 60% for Hispanic women. These percentages describe the chart’s populations and should be considered alongside the source’s survival statistics.
Mammography statistics
The ACS Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 reports that about 49% of women age 40 and older had a mammogram in the past year in 2021, while about 67% had one in the past two years. By age, mammography prevalence in the past two years was 52% among women ages 40–44, 73% among women ages 45–64, 77% among women ages 65–74, and 56% among women age 75 and older.
The same 2021 measure varied across groups. Past-two-year mammography prevalence was 65% among Hispanic/Latina women, 68% among White women, 73% among Black women, 62% among Asian American women, and 51% among American Indian/Alaska Native women. Among uninsured women under age 65, prevalence was 37%.
By place of birth and length of time in the United States, the reported prevalence was 68% for women born in the United States or a US territory and 48% for women who had been in the United States for fewer than 10 years. By region, it was 69% in the Northeast and 63% in the West. All of these mammography figures refer to the past two years in 2021, unless the one-year measure is specified.
The global burden
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reports more than 2.26 million new breast cancer cases worldwide in 2020 and more than 2.31 million in 2022. In 2022, breast cancer was the second most commonly diagnosed cancer type globally after lung cancer. IARC’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2022 page reports about 685,000 deaths from female breast cancer worldwide in 2020.
The GLOBOCAN 2022 world fact sheet reports 2,296,840 breast cancer cases worldwide in 2022, representing 11.5% of all new cancer cases. The GLOBOCAN 2022 breast fact sheet reports 306,307 incident cases in Northern America, 985,817 in Asia, and 557,532 in Europe during 2022.
The global figures use different source pages and stated measurement years, so they should be retained as source-specific estimates or counts rather than combined. For caregivers, the central message is that breast cancer affects families across age groups and geographies, while stage, access to screening, and population-level outcomes vary substantially.