Breast Cancer Death Rates Will Drop In EU And UK In 2025

A recent study published by the European Society for Medical Oncology on March 12 titled Breast cancer deaths expected to fall in the EU and UK by 2025 across most age groups, highlighted that death rates from breast cancer will fall in 2025 in every age group, except EU patients aged 80 years or older. In these older patients, the overall mortality rates from the disease is actually predicted to rise by nearly 10% in 2025.

However, in the UK, people of the age bracket 80 years and older is expected to decrease by 7% as compared to the rates observed between 2015-19. In Spain, there is also a speculation to decrease by 4%.

What Did The Study Find?

The study was published in the Annals of Oncology that predicted the cancer death rate sin the EU and UK for 2025. It was led by Professor Carlo La Vecchia from the University of Milan and the research highlighted the increase of breast cancer mortality among women over the age of 80.

“Elderly women are not covered by screening programs and may not benefit from advances in chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiotherapy, and surgery,” Prof. La Vecchia explained. Rising obesity rates in the northern and central Europe have also increased breast cancer risk, the study found. It is especially even more among older women, where improved diagnosis and treatment have not kept pace.

However, in the case of younger women, aged 20 to 49, they have also received limited screening, but are projected to experience a decline in death rates by 7% in the EU and 15% in the UK, as compared to 2015 to 2019 levels. Overall, the study finds that the death rates will fall by 4% in the EU and 6% in the UK in 2025.

Data In Each Country

The breast cancer mortality rates vary across countries and the study predicts decline of death rates by 14% in Germany, 10% in the UK, 9% in Poland, 8% in France and Spain and 2% in Italy.

This is across different age groups that the breast cancer death rates will be down by 7 to 12% on overage in the EU. However, the death rates in older woman will increase, except in Spain.

Since 1989, an estimated 373,000 breast cancer deaths have been prevented in the EU and 197,000 in the UK, primarily due to better treatments and early diagnosis through widespread screening.

Overall Cancer Mortality Rates

The researchers analyzed data on multiple cancers from the World Health Organization and United Nations databases, covering EU-27 countries and the UK. This is the fifteenth consecutive year these predictions have been published, consistently proving reliable.

For all cancers combined, age-standardized death rates are projected to decline:

• By 3.5% in EU men (from 125 to 121 per 100,000 people)
• By 1% in EU women (from 80 to 79 per 100,000 people)
• By 10% in UK men (from 112 to 101 per 100,000 people)
• By 6% in UK women (from 87.6 to 82 per 100,000 people)

Despite these improvements, the actual number of cancer deaths is expected to rise due to an aging population. By 2025, 1.28 million people in the EU and 173,000 in the UK will succumb to cancer.