Death rates from breast cancer this year are expected to fall by 9% in all European Union countries compared with five years ago, according to an analysis published today.
Professor Carlo La Vecchia, of the University of Milan, Italy, and colleagues say the age standardised death rates from breast cancer have fallen from 14.6 per 100,000 of the population in 2014 to a predicted 13.4 per 100,000 in 2019. The actual numbers of deaths from the disease continue to rise because of the growing number of elderly people.
Writing in the Annals of Oncology, they say although the overall figure is expected to fall across EU countries, the breast cancer death rate will rise by about 2% in Poland.
“In 2014 there were 92,000 deaths from breast cancer in Europe and in 2019 we are predicting 92,800,” said Professor La Vecchia. “This means the burden of the disease will continue to increase, with consequent implications for public health and costs to society.”
Compared to the period between 2010-2014, age standardised death rates from breast cancer are predicted to fall by 16% in 2019 in women aged between 50-69 years, but 6% in women aged between 70-79 years.
This research, the ninth annual report by researchers, examined cancer death rates in the EU 28 Member States and also in the six largest countries – France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK – for all cancers, and, individually, for stomach, intestines, pancreas, lung, breast, uterus (including cervix), ovary, prostate, bladder and leukaemias for men and women.
It found that the UK has the greatest predicted decrease in breast cancer deaths for 2019 at 13%, followed by France (10%), Germany (9%), Italy (7%), and Spain (5%). In Poland there is a predicted 2% increase.
The researchers predict there will be 1.4 million deaths from all cancers in the EU in 2019, an increase of about 4.8% from 1.35 million in 2014.
However, they say there will be 6% drop in the age standardised rate from 139 per 100,000 men in 2014 to 131 per 100,000 in 2019 and a 3.6% decline in women from 86 per 100,000 to 83 per 100,000.
Lung cancer remains the biggest killer in both sexes, with 183,200 deaths in men predicted for 2019 and 96,800 predicted in women.
Although death rates are falling among men by about 9% – from 36 per 100,000 in 2014 to 32 per 100,000 in 2019 – rates are still rising in women from 14.2 per 100,00 in 2014 to a predicted 14.8 per 100,000 in 2019.
Pancreatic cancer was the only one that did not show a downward trend in death rates: in men rates will be stable in 2019, with an age standardised rate of 7.92 per 100,000; 45,600 deaths, and an increase of 1.6% in women, with an age standardised rate of 5.57 per 100,000; 45,100 deaths.
The researchers say that compared to a peak rate of cancer deaths in 1988, more than five million cancer deaths have been avoided in the EU in the 31-year period up to 2019.
Malvezzi M, Carioli G, Bertuccio P et al. European cancer mortality predictions for the year 2019 with focus on breast cancer. Annals of Oncology 19 March 2019; doi:10.1093/annonc/mdz051
https://academic.oup.com/annonc/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/annonc/mdz051
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