Deaths due to breast cancer in the U.S. from 1950 to 2025
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world and, for decades, was among the deadliest for American women. Yet the story of breast cancer deaths in the United States since 1950 is, unusually, a hopeful one. For most of the twentieth century the death rate barely moved, and in the 1980s it rose. Then, around 1990, it began a long and steady fall that has continued for more than three decades and counts among the great public-health successes of modern medicine.
The disease has not become rarer. More women are diagnosed with breast cancer today than ever before, as the population grows, ages and gets screened more often. What has changed is the chance of surviving it. Tumours are found earlier, and the treatments that follow are far more effective than they once were. The result is that even as diagnoses rise, deaths per 100,000 women keep falling.
This report sets out the numbers: how the death rate has moved since 1950, how many women and men die each year, who is most at risk by age and by race, and why the decline happened. A brief note on the data. Rates here are age-adjusted, meaning they account for the ageing of the population so that different years can be compared fairly. The most consistent national series, from the National Cancer Institute SEER program, begins in 1975; the longer view back to 1950 comes from vital-statistics records described in the text.
The long decline in the breast cancer death rate
The single most important number is the age-adjusted death rate, the deaths per 100,000 women, adjusted for age. National records show that this rate was approximately level from the 1950s through the 1970s, then rose during the 1980s to a peak in 1989 of about 33 deaths per 100,000 women. From that peak it has fallen almost without interruption. The chart traces the rate from 1975, when the modern SEER series begins, to 2024.
A turning point in 1989: after peaking near 33 per 100,000, the death rate has fallen to about 18.7, a drop of 44 percent.
In 1975 the rate stood at about 31.4 deaths per 100,000 women. It drifted upward for the next 14 years to its 1989 peak, then reversed. By 2010 it had fallen to 21.3, and by 2024 to about 18.7. Overall the death rate dropped 44 percent from its 1989 peak through 2022, a decline that has continued at roughly 1 percent a year since. Few major cancers have seen anything like this sustained a reversal.
How many people die of breast cancer
Because the population has grown so much since 1950, the falling rate does not mean the raw number of deaths has fallen as steeply. In 2025 an estimated 42,680 people in the United States were expected to die of breast cancer: about 42,170 women and 510 men. Breast cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer death among American women, second only to lung cancer.
Breast cancer overwhelmingly affects women, who make up more than 99 percent of both cases and deaths, which is why almost all breast cancer statistics focus on women. For context on the population these rates are measured against, see our data on the US population by sex. The small number of male deaths, around 510 a year, reflects how uncommon the disease is in men rather than any lower danger once it occurs.
Which age groups are most affected
Age is the strongest risk factor for dying of breast cancer after being born female. The chart shows the share of breast cancer deaths that fall in each age band, based on recent national data.
A disease of later life: the 65 to 74 group alone accounts for about a quarter of breast cancer deaths.
About four in five breast cancer deaths occur in women aged 55 and over, and the median age at death is in the early 70s. Deaths before 45 are relatively rare, accounting for roughly 5 percent of the total, though breast cancer in younger women tends to be more aggressive. The concentration of deaths in older age groups is one reason screening guidelines focus on women from their 40s onward, when the risk begins to climb.
Why the death rate has dropped so far
Two forces explain the long decline, and researchers still debate their exact shares. The first is earlier detection. The spread of screening mammography from the 1980s onward meant more tumours were caught while small and confined to the breast, when they are far easier to treat. The second, and increasingly the larger factor, is better treatment: improved surgery, radiation, hormone therapies such as tamoxifen, and modern targeted drugs.
Treatment advances are closely tied to the rise of biotechnology in medicine. Targeted biologic drugs, including antibodies developed specifically for certain breast cancer subtypes, have improved outcomes for patients who once had few options, part of the broader shift explored in our report on biotechnology in pharma worldwide. The combined effect of finding cancer earlier and treating it better shows up clearly in survival statistics, which have climbed steadily over the same decades.
Better odds: five-year survival rose from about 75 percent in the mid-1970s to roughly 91 percent today, then broadly plateaued.
In the mid-1970s only about three in four women lived five years after a breast cancer diagnosis. Today around nine in ten do. Most of that gain came between the 1970s and the 2000s, after which survival has held steady near 91 percent. The plateau reflects a simple fact: once most cancers are caught early and treated well, further gains become harder to win, and the remaining deaths are concentrated in cancers found late.
Why early detection matters so much
The single biggest factor in whether a woman survives breast cancer is how far it has spread by the time it is found. The chart shows five-year survival by stage at diagnosis, and the gap is stark.
Stage is destiny: survival is about 99 percent when the cancer is caught early but drops to roughly 30 percent once it spreads to distant organs.
When breast cancer is still localized to the breast, five-year survival is about 99 percent. If it has spread to nearby lymph nodes, that falls to about 86 percent, and if it has reached distant organs such as the bones, lungs or liver, survival drops to roughly 30 percent. Because about two-thirds of cases are found at the localized stage, the overall average sits near 91 percent, but the enormous gap explains why screening and prompt follow-up remain so important.
A gap that has not closed
The progress against breast cancer has not been shared equally. The clearest divide is by race and ethnicity, and it runs in a direction that surprises many people. The chart shows the age-adjusted death rate by group.
An unequal burden: Black women die of breast cancer at a rate about 38 to 40 percent higher than White women, despite a lower rate of diagnosis.
Black women are diagnosed with breast cancer slightly less often than White women, yet they die from it far more often, at a rate about 38 to 40 percent higher. Five-year survival is around 83 percent for Black women against about 92 percent for White women. The reasons are complex, including later-stage diagnosis, less access to timely treatment, and a higher share of aggressive cancer subtypes. For American Indian and Alaska Native women, the death rate has barely changed in three decades. Closing these gaps is where public-health experts see the greatest room for further progress.
What the numbers mean
The overall picture is one of remarkable progress paired with unfinished business. Since 1989 the falling death rate has meant roughly 517,900 fewer breast cancer deaths in US women than would have occurred if the rate had stayed at its peak, one of the clearest returns on decades of investment in screening and research. A woman diagnosed today has a far better chance of surviving than one diagnosed a generation ago.
Yet about 42,000 women still die each year, the racial gap remains wide, and survival gains have levelled off as the easy wins are used up. Further progress will likely depend on catching more cancers early, extending the best treatments to everyone, and continuing advances in targeted therapy. For now, the long line on the chart, still sloping gently downward, tells the essential story: breast cancer remains a serious threat, but a steadily less deadly one than it was in 1950.
Breast cancer deaths in numbers
A handful of figures capture the whole trend. The death rate has fallen 44 percent from its 1989 peak, about 42,000 women still die each year, five-year survival is near 91 percent, and roughly half a million deaths have been averted since the decline began.
Taken together, these numbers show why breast cancer is often cited as a model of what sustained screening and research can achieve, and why closing the remaining gaps matters so much.
Frequently Asked Questions
In 2025, an estimated 42,680 people were expected to die of breast cancer in the United States, about 42,170 women and 510 men. That works out to roughly 42,000 women a year, making breast cancer one of the leading causes of cancer death in women.
It has fallen sharply. The age-adjusted breast cancer death rate for US women peaked in 1989 at about 33 per 100,000 and has since dropped by 44 percent to under 19 per 100,000, one of the biggest declines for any major cancer.
Two things drove the fall: earlier detection through screening mammography, which finds tumours when they are smaller and more treatable, and much better treatment, including hormone therapy, chemotherapy and newer targeted biologic drugs.
The American Cancer Society estimates that about 517,900 breast cancer deaths were averted in US women between 1989 and 2022, compared with the number that would have occurred if the death rate had stayed at its 1989 peak.
The five-year relative survival rate for breast cancer is now about 91 percent, up from around 75 percent in the mid-1970s. Survival is about 99 percent when the cancer is found early and still localized, but only about 30 percent once it has spread to distant organs.
Risk rises with age: most breast cancer deaths occur in women aged 55 and older, with the 65 to 74 group the single largest. Black women also have a death rate about 38 to 40 percent higher than White women despite a lower incidence.
Yes, but rarely. Breast cancer is far less common in men, and about 510 men were expected to die of it in the US in 2025, against roughly 42,170 women.
NCI SEER - Cancer Stat Facts: Female Breast Cancer - death rate, survival and age data.
American Cancer Society - Cancer Facts and Figures 2025 - estimated deaths, decline and disparities.
Giaquinto et al - Breast Cancer Statistics 2024, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians - 44 percent decline and racial gap.
Susan G. Komen - Breast Cancer Statistics - mortality trend over time.
Social determinants of breast cancer disparities, NCBI - death rate by race and ethnicity.