Breast cancer incidence and mortality--United States, 1992.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed nondermatologic cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the United States. In 1996, a total of 184,300 new cases of and 44,300 deaths from invasive breast cancer are projected among women. To assess trends in incidence and death rates for breast cancer among U.S. women, CDC analyzed national incidence data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program and death-certificate data from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). This report presents incidence and death rates for breast cancer for 1992 (the most recent year for which SEER data were available) and summarizes trends in these rates for 1973-1992. Overall, these findings indicate that incidence rates for invasive breast cancer increased among women during 1973-1987 and stabilized during 1988-1992, while mortality rates remained stable during 1973-1988 and decreased during 1989-1992.