Notes on the data: Premature mortality by selected cause - 0 to 74 years

Deaths from breast cancer, females aged 0 to 74 years, 2017 to 2021

Policy context: In 2020, breast cancer was the fifth-most common cause of cancer-related death in Australia and the most commonly diagnosed cancer in females [1]. In the five years from 2017 to 2021, the mortality rate was 9.5% below the national rate in the least socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and 5.8% above in the most disadvantaged areas.

In 2016 to 2020, 10% of deaths from breast cancer in females occurred in those younger than 50, 36% in those aged 50 to 69 and 54% in those aged 70 years and over [2].

Age-standardised mortality rates for breast cancer of females increased from 29.5 per 100,000 female population in 1968 to 31.6 per 100,000 female population 1989; there were small variations to 1994, after which rates decreased markedly to 18.2 per 100,000 in 2021 [3].

For 2017 to 2021, over half (56.9%) of all female deaths from breast cancer were premature - these and other details are available here.

References

Breast cancer in Australia statistics. Cancer Australia. Available from: https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/cancer-types/breast-cancer/statistics ; last accessed 4 December 2023.
PHIDU (www.phidu.torrens.edu.au), Cause of Death Unit Record Files supplied by the Australian Coordinating Registry and the Victorian Department of Justice, on behalf of the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System; 2017-2021.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). Cancer mortality by age visualisation. Available from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/cancer/cancer-data-in-australia/contents/cancer-mortality-by-age-visualisation; last accessed 4 December 2023.

Notes: International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes: C50

For detalied data files released since 2007, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has applied a staged approach to the coding of cause of death which affects the number of records available for release at any date. In general, the latest year’s data are designated preliminary, the second latest as revised and the data for the remaining years as final. For further information about the ABS revisions process see the following and related sites: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3303.0Explanatory+Notes12012.

Data published here are from the following releases: 2017, final; 2018, revised; and 2019, 2020, and 2021, preliminary.

Geography: Data available by Population Health Area, Local Government Area, Primary Health Network, Quintile of socioeconomic disadvantage of area and Quintiles within PHNs, and Remoteness Area

Numerator: Female deaths from breast cancer at ages 0 to 74 years

Denominator: Females aged 0 to 74 years

Detail of analysis: Average annual indirectly age-standardised rate per 100,000 females (aged 0 to 74 years); and/or indirectly age-standardised ratio, based on the Australian standard.

Source: Data compiled by PHIDU from deaths data based on the 2017 to 2021 Cause of Death Unit Record Files supplied by the Australian Coordinating Registry and the Victorian Department of Justice, on behalf of the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System. The population is the average of the ABS Estimated Resident Population (ERP) for Australia, 30 June 2017 to 30 June 2021.