This year, an estimated 232,340 women in the United States will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and 64,640 women will be diagnosed with in situ breast cancer. An estimated 2,240 men in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer. It is estimated that 40,030 deaths (39,620 women, 410 men) from breast cancer will occur this year.

If the cancer is located only in the breast, the five-year relative survival rate (percentage of people who are alive at least five years after the cancer is detected, excluding those who die from other diseases) is 98%. If the cancer has spread to the regional lymph nodes, the five-year survival rate is 84%. If the cancer has spread to a distant part of the body, the five-year survival rate is 24%. About 5% of women have metastatic cancer when they are first diagnosed with breast cancer. Even if the cancer is found at a more advanced stage, new treatments help many people with breast cancer experience a similar quality of life as before their diagnosis, at least for some period of time.

It is important to note that these statistics are averages, and each person’s risk depends on many factors, including the size of the tumor, the number lymph nodes that contain cancer (called node-positive cancer; see Diagnosis), and other features of the tumor, such as the grade, estrogen and progesterone receptors, HER2, and other factors that affect how quickly a tumor will grow and how well treatment works.

Breast cancer is the second most common cause of death from cancer in women in the United States, after lung cancer. However, since 1990, the number of women who have died of breast cancer has steadily decreased. In women younger than 50, there has been a decrease of around 3% per year (from 2005 to 2009; the latest data available). In women age 50 and older, the decrease has been 2% per year. However, in situ cancer breast cancer has increased by 2.8% between 2005 and 2009. Currently, there are more than 2.9 million women living in the United States who have been diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer.

Cancer survival statistics should be interpreted with caution. These estimates are based on data from thousands of people with this type of cancer in the United States each year, but the actual risk for a particular individual may differ. It is not possible to tell a person how long he or she will live with breast cancer. Because the survival statistics are measured in five-year intervals, they may not represent advances made in the treatment or diagnosis of this cancer. Learn more about understanding statistics.

Statistics adapted from the American Cancer Society's publication, Cancer Facts & Figures 2013, and the National Cancer Institute Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database.