Breast Cancer’s Prevalence and the Importance of Early Detection

According to the National Cancer Institute, there were well over 2.5 million women at the onset of 2006 living with a history of breast cancer. In 2010, it’s estimated that there were over 200,000 new incidences of female breast cancer and that nearly 40,000 women lost their lives to the disease.
 
In Georgia, regional estimates for 2010 indicate that:

• 1 in 177 people in Georgia was diagnosed with some form of cancer
• 6,130 new cases of female breast cancer were diagnosed in Georgia alone
• Rates for new female breast cancer cases ranked 2nd highest in the state (male prostate cancer)
• 1,100 women in Georgia died from breast cancer

Fortunately, current five-year survival rates have vastly improved over rates from just a decade or two ago. For instance, as recently as the 1980s, rates for all races combined in female breast cancer were at 79%. Due to advances in technology, early detection, and other measures, those same survival rates had leaped to 90% by 2005, according to the American Cancer Society.

It’s because of those medical advancements and the hope those statistics bring that it becomes ever-more vital to detect breast cancer as early as possible. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with breast cancer and feel it may have been detected late or misdiagnosed initially by your doctor, please request a copy of our free book, I Have Cancer…Should It Have Been Caught Earlier?, or contact an experienced medical malpractice and breast cancer lawyer at the Dover Law Firm at 770-518-1133 to discuss the specifics of your case.