Breast cancer deaths among young women in USA have declined

Breast cancer deaths among young women have declined 

 Breast cancer deaths among young women in the US have declined over the past decade.

Researchers at the 2025 American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Chicago said that the death rate for young American women with breast cancer is no longer what it was 10 years ago.

An analysis of data from the National Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (NSER) registry shows that breast cancer deaths declined significantly among women ages 20 to 49 between 2010 and 2020, across all disease subtypes and all racial and ethnic groups, with a marked decline beginning after 2016. Overall, the breast cancer death rate in this age group declined from 9.70 per 100,000 women in 2010 to 1.47 per 100,000 women in 2020.

The decline was even steeper after 2016, likely due to advances in treatment options, greater reliance on precision medicine, and increased access to care and screening among women ages 40 to 49, said Adetunji Toriola, lead author of the study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in a statement. While the breast cancer death rate declined across every racial and ethnic group, the rate was highest among non-Hispanic Black women in both 2010 (16.56 per 100,000) and 2020 (3.41 per 100,000).

Non-Hispanic White women had the lowest rates in 2010 (9.18 per 100,000) and 2020 (1.16 per 100,000). Toriola added, "We have made tremendous progress in reducing breast cancer deaths in young women, but there is still room for improvement, particularly in eliminating disparities."

He continued, "We must continue to conduct effective research to ensure further reductions in breast cancer mortality, including research into understanding tumor biology and the molecular processes that drive cancer formation and response to treatment in young women."