Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women in the U.S. after lung cancer. Nearly 43,000 women in the U.S. are expected to die from breast cancer each year. However, advances in both early detection and treatment have led to improved survival for people of all ages, races and stages of breast cancer. Since 1989, the breast cancer mortality rate in the U.S. has dropped by more than 40%. A mortality rate tells us how many people in a set population died from breast cancer over a period of time. It’s usually written as the number of cases in a population of 100,000 people per year. To understand whether deaths from breast cancer are changing over time, we compare mortality rates, instead of the number of people who have died from the disease.

Even though overall breast cancer deaths have declined, Black women are still more likely to die from breast cancer than women from other racial and ethnic groups.

Many factors contribute to differences in mortality among various populations. Unequal access to high-quality medical care and disparities in treatment can impact survival. Also, some groups have differences in tumor biology that are linked to a poorer prognosis. But there’s good news. Today, there are more than 4 million breast cancer survivors and people living with breast cancer in the U.S., more than any other type of cancer. Susan G. Komen® has statistics and information about specific populations on our website. To learn more, you can visit the Breast Cancer Statistics page on komen.org. There you’ll find the most up to date information about breast cancer mortality in different groups.