How Does Breast Cancer Mortality Compare with That of Other Cancers and Selected Cardiovascular Diseases at Different Ages in U.S. Women?

Abstract

Women tend to fear breast cancer and thus overestimate their risk of developing it, have less concern about developing heart disease, and do not know that lung cancer is the major cause of cancer death. Death certificate data, consolidated into a national database by the National Center for Health Statistics, were used to compare age-specific mortality due to selected cardiovascular diseases and cancers among women who died in 1997 in the United States. The outcomes examined included underlying cause of death categorized as all circulatory system disease, cerebrovascular disease, and heart disease, including coronary and noncoronary disease, and as all cancers combined plus cancer of the lung, breast, and colon/rectum. In 1997, 500,703 women in the United States died from diseases of the circulatory system, including 370,357 deaths from heart disease. Most deaths from heart disease were due to coronary heart disease, which exceeded mortality from cerebrovascular disease at all ages except under age 40. In 1997, 258,463 women in the United States died from cancer, and before age 55, breast cancer death rates exceeded lung and colorectal cancer death rates. Mortality due to total heart disease exceeded breast and lung cancer mortality among women at all ages, but before age 55, when absolute death rates are low, breast cancer death rates exceeded those for coronary heart disease. In conclusion, aside from mortality due to all cancers combined and circulatory system disease, only accidents, which were not included in this study, and total heart disease caused more deaths than breast cancer before age 55.