The number of people who die after a breast cancer diagnosis has decreased by two-thirds since the 1990s, a study of more than half a million women in England has shown.
The research has taken ten years to complete, says Carolyn Taylor, lead author of the study and an oncologist at the University of Oxford, UK. The analysis includes the 512,447 women in England who were diagnosed with early invasive breast cancer between January 1993 and December 2015.
The results published in the BMJ found women who were diagnosed in 1993–99 had a 14.4% risk of dying within 5 years. This fell to 4.9% for women diagnosed in 2010–15.
Patient involvement was important to the study, Taylor says. The scientists appointed two patient representatives to guide their research. “They helped us in the questions to be addressed. They looked at the analyses and gave comments and suggestions throughout the study. And they helped us to interpret the results in the way that patients can understand.”
Source: Nature, 23 June 2023
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