2017: Compilation of Breast Cancer Facts and Figures

Even though there are over 300 NIH-funded clinical trials for potential new therapies for breast cancer, there are likely much more currently under development that is not included in this figure. Hopefully, this means that there are soon to be more and better options for women who are diagnosed with this extremely common and potentially deadly disease. It's important that we come up with better screening to catch cancer early and find better drugs to improve survival for patients who suffer from breast cancer.

2017 is coming to a close and these are our realities regarding breast cancer. It's an incredibly prevalent cancer and we need to strive for better screening and treatment to protect the women in our lives. The trends we continue to see are the ever-increasing cost of completing treatment but at least the steadily decreasing rate of mortality if caught early.

Right now, we are lacking adequate screening tools to decrease the rate at which breast cancers are diagnosed late into the disease. Though routine mammographies are useful, they are still not good enough to protect most women who are unknowingly living with a tumor and allowing it to spread. Since 6 out of 10 women are diagnosed after onset of metastases, we hope that scientists can find a way to reduce this number with better diagnostic tools and screening assessments.

Despite some figures that represent how devastating breast cancer can be, we can at least celebrate the successes of modern medicine in the relatively high 5-year survival rate of breast cancer sufferers. If we can find a way to improve therapies and lower cost of overall treatment, we would be moving in the right direction to help patients battle this terrible disease.

Drugs in development to help people suffering from breast cancer

A few months ago, the large pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly had one of the most promising drugs for cancer called abemaciclib. This drug was in late-stage development, meaning it was close to being able to be adopted as a therapy for treating breast cancer. In the clinical studies performed by Eli Lilly, use of this drug in combination with other available therapies significantly increased rates of progression-free survival in breast cancer patients.

Lilly was able to win approval for their drug, and it's now branded as Verzenio. The drug became available in late September of this year. What people don't know is that trials for newly-approved drugs like Verzenio aren't included in the number represented by NIH clinical trials. The quoted number also doesn't include studies that are mid-stage and performed by small biotech companies. For example, Celldex Therapeutics is a small company that has been evaluating a drug called glembatumumab vedotin (glemba) for treatment of breast cancer. This drug is currently in phase II of clinical trials, and this drug is also now included in the NIH toll of clinical trials for promising breast cancer treatments.

Facts and figures to represent the good and bad about breast cancer

WalletHub has decided to put together some facts and figures representing the good and the bad in regards to breast cancer.

They've compiled a list of statistics that represent facts and figures related to what we know today about the disease and its therapies. Some numbers represent the bad, while others represent the good. We've shared these numbers with you in an easy-to-read list below!