From 31% to 66.4% in three decades: India’s breast cancer survival climbs, but still trails world

India’s five-year breast cancer survival rate has climbed sharply over three decades, according to a 2024 National Cancer Registry Programme study, rising from 31-54% among women diagnosed in the 1990s to 66.4% for those diagnosed during 2012-2015. Researchers said the improvement still leaves scope for progress through earlier diagnosis and better access to quality cancer care.

That upward trend is echoed in newer World Health Organization estimates, published in Nature Medicine, which put India’s five-year breast cancer survival rate for women diagnosed during 2017-2021 at 65.7%. But the figure remains well below the global median of 77.8%, and further behind the 87.3% survival rate recorded in high-income countries, 88.5% in the WHO region of the Americas and 84% in the European region.

The WHO study is the first to estimate five-year breast cancer survival across all 194 member states, providing a baseline for the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative, which aims to cut premature breast cancer mortality by 2.5% a year and save 2.5 million lives by 2040.

Abhishek Shankar, assistant professor of radiation oncology at AIIMS, said India’s survival gains reflect improvements from community-based screening and Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY, but that many women still present with advanced disease due to low awareness, stigma, financial barriers and delays in diagnosis. He pointed to disparities in access to pathology, imaging, radiotherapy, systemic therapy and follow-up care, particularly between urban and rural areas, as continuing to affect outcomes.

Breast cancer is now the most common cancer among women in 158 countries and caused an estimated 6.9 lakh deaths globally in 2024, with nearly 70% of those deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. The WHO said stage at diagnosis remains one of the strongest predictors of survival, alongside timely access to surgery, radiotherapy and cancer medicines.

The WHO estimates were derived using survival data from cancer registries in 67 countries, with statistical modelling applied for countries lacking complete registry data, factoring in stage at diagnosis, access to cancer medicines, radiotherapy and mammography capacity, and overall adult mortality.