Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in the world and, by far, the most frequent cancer among women with an estimated 1.67 million new cancer cases diagnosed in 2012 (25% of all cancers). It is the most common cancer in women both in more and less developed regions with slightly more cases in less developed (883,000 cases) than in more developed (794,000) regions. Incidence rates vary nearly four-fold across the world regions, with rates ranging from 27 per 100,000 in Middle Africa and Eastern Asia to 92 in Northern America.
Breast cancer ranks as the fifth cause of death from cancer overall (522,000 deaths) and while it is the most frequent cause of cancer death in women in less developed regions (324,000 deaths, 14.3% of total), it is now the second cause of cancer death in more developed regions (198,000 deaths, 15.4%) after lung cancer. The range in mortality rates between world regions is less than that for incidence because of the more favorable survival of breast cancer in (high-incidence) developed regions, with rates ranging from 6 per 100,000 in Eastern Asia to 20 per 100,000 in Western Africa.
Source: WHO (World Health Organization) 2012-2016
We have put together a chart below to illustrate the regions globally with the highest and lowest incidence of breast cancer in women:
