By Maxwell Awumah, GNA
Ho, March 5, GNA-New breast cancer cases in women are predicted to rise by a third, globally to more than 3.5 million in 2050, from the 2.3 million figures in 2023, despite recent advancements in treatments.
Similarly, yearly deaths from the disease are projected to surge 44 per cent, from around 764,000 to 1.4 million, with disproportionate impact in countries with limited resources, according to a major new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study Breast Cancer Collaborators, published in The Lancet Oncology on Monday.
The findings suggest that maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including not smoking, getting sufficient physical activity, lowering red meat consumption, and having a healthy weight may prevent over a quarter of healthy years lost to illness and premature death due to breast cancer worldwide.
Lead author, Kayleigh Bhangdia from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, USA, said “Breast cancer continues to take a profound toll on women’s lives and communities.”
“While those in high-income countries typically benefit from screening and more timely diagnosis and comprehensive treatment strategies, the mounting burden of breast cancer is shifting to low- and lower middle-income countries where individuals often face later-stage diagnosis, more limited access to quality care, and higher death rates that are threatening to eclipse progress in women’s health.”
Using data from population-based cancer registries, vital registration systems, and interviews with family members or caregivers of women who have died from breast cancer, the new analysis provides an updated global, regional, and national analysis of the female breast cancer burden and risk factor estimates from 1990 to 2023 in 204 countries and territories, with forecasts up to 2050.
Importantly, the study also estimates the number of years of healthy life that women with breast cancer have lost to illness, disability, and premature death.
“With more than a quarter of the global breast cancer burden linked to six modifiable lifestyle changes there are tremendous opportunities to alter the trajectory of breast cancer risk for the next generation,” said Co-senior author, Dr Marie Ng, Affiliate Associate Professor at IHME and Associate Professor at National University of Singapore.
“Targeting known risk factors through public health policies and making healthier choices more accessible, while working with individuals to take action to reduce obesity and high blood sugar, is crucial to halting the rise in breast cancers worldwide.”
Even with the best prevention policies, millions of women will still develop breast cancer, which makes closing the care gap an urgent priority. The authors stress that with fair access to care in low-resource settings, investment in innovative therapies, and strong political will, there is an opportunity to ensure that all women have an equal chance to overcome breast cancer.
As Dr Lisa Force, co-senior author from IHME explained, “Collaborative efforts are needed to ensure well-functioning health systems capable of early diagnosis and comprehensive treatment of breast cancer in all countries. Reducing the cost of breast cancer therapies and ensuring that universal health coverage includes breast cancer care essentials would also be valuable in protecting patients from catastrophic costs and improving outcomes.”
While the study uses the best available data, the authors note that the estimates are constrained by a lack of high-quality cancer registry data, particularly in countries with limited resources, highlighting the need to increase investments in cancer surveillance systems.
They also note that information on cancer stage at diagnosis and subtype are not included in the analysis despite their distinct survival patterns and resource implications due to data limitations, and the analysis does not analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic or recent conflicts on the disease burden.
Writing in a linked Comment, Professor Yeon Hee Park from Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea (who was not involved with the study) noted that, “Without ethnic or genetic ancestry data, the study cannot distinguish whether observed regional differences reflect genetic predisposition, environmental exposures, health-care disparities, or combinations thereof…Despite these limitations, this study provides a necessary foundation for global health planning…With appropriate refinements, particularly ethnic and genetic ancestry stratification that acknowledges the distinctive molecular signatures of African, Asian, and other ethnic and genetic ancestry populations, this study can achieve its goal of informing evidence-based cancer control strategies worldwide.”
GNA
Edited by: Maxwell Awumah/Kenneth Odeng Adade