Hi everyone
It's great to see this discussion re-kindled.
Data collection for secondary breast cancer continues to be an area of advocacy for us. We don't have an update on the WA and Victorian trials just yet, but we are in regular contact with Cancer Australia and will update with further information as soon as it comes through. The projects are quite extensive (they are trialling different methods of collecting data on the stage of the cancer at diagnosis and at recurrence) so they really want to get the process right before looking at implementing a national method of data collection.
It is really difficult to make accurate statements about secondary breast cancer statistics. I really wish I could answer all your questions about statistics with confidence. There is no concrete information about how many women in Australia are currently living with secondary breast cancer, unfortunately.
That said, researchers have made some estimations about secondary breast cancer in Australia. They predicted that around 3000 Australian women (all ages) are diagnosed with secondary breast cancer each year, with around 9000 Australian women living with secondary breast cancer at any given time.
They estimated that around 3% were aged less than 40 years, 12% between 40-49, 23% between 50-59, 25% between 60-69, 26% between 70-79 and 12% 80+.
I just want to stress again that these numbers are projections or estimations (very educated guesses). They are not quite as reliable as data collected through national cancer data registries, which is why we are advocating for improvements in this area.
I hope this information is useful to you. I would hate to think that any woman with secondary breast cancer feels forgotten by BCNA - I want to assure you this is certainly not the case. We will continue to support and advocate for women with secondary breast cancer. Get in touch if you have any further questions and take care
Nic
