“…Incidence rates vary from 19.3 per 100,000 women in Eastern Africa to 89.7 per 100,000 women in Western Europe, and are high (greater than 80 per 100,000) in developed regions of the world (except Japan) and low (less than 40 per 100,000) in most of the developing regions. The range of mortality rates is much less (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19) per 100,000) because of the more favorable survival of breast cancer in (high-incidence) developed regions. As a result, breast cancer ranks as the fifth cause of death from cancer overall (458,000 deaths), but it is still the most frequent cause of cancer death in women in both developing (269,000 deaths, 12.7% of total) and developed regions, where the estimated 189,000 deaths is almost equal to the estimated number of deaths from lung cancer (188,000 deaths) (1).…”