The mortality rate for American women with breast cancer fell an estimated 58 percent from 1975 to 2019, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
47% of the drop was due to earlier and more effective treatment of those with Stage 1, 2 or 3 breast cancer. 25 percent of the drop was due to to improved mammography screening. 29 percent was due to better treatment of metastatic breast cancer, meaning cancer that has spread.
“The findings used analysis of observational and clinical trial data from four models within the federally funded Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network that track breast cancer screenings and treatments. Using modeling, the researchers were able to take into account changes in breast cancer incidence over time.”
The 58 percent decline figure represents “what the mortality would have been estimated to be in 2019 if no improvements [in screenings and treatments] had been made” in the 44 covered years, said Jennifer Caswell-Jin, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor at Stanford’s medical school.
“Without modeling, data shows that the mortality rate declined by 44 percent from 1975 to 2019, from 48 deaths per 100,000 women in 1975 to 27 per 100,000 women in 2019.”
In other news, doctors recently cured a child of a type of brain cancer that previously always killed kids who had it.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer: “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply.”
“Surgeons and scientists have developed a world-first blood test for brain cancer that experts say could revolutionize diagnosis, speed up treatment and boost survival rates,” reports The Guardian. Despite advances in fighting other kinds of cancer, “brain tumors have remained notoriously difficult to diagnose. They affect hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year, and kill more children and adults under the age of 40 … than any other cancer.
Robots may also help remove brain cancers. Robots can fit in small spaces in people’s bodies that a surgeon can’t reach without cutting through living tissue.
Doctors overseas are using artificial intelligence to detect cases of breast cancer more effectively. Artificial intelligence is now developing highly-effective antibodies to fight disease.
