Breast Cancer Survival Improves in India, but Continues to Trail High-Income Countries: WHO

India's five-year breast cancer survival rate has improved steadily over the years but continues to lag behind that of high-income countries, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) first country-wise survival estimates published in Nature Medicine. The report estimates that 65.7% of women diagnosed with breast cancer in India during 2017–2021 survive for at least five years, compared with a global median of 77.8%.

Survival reaches 87.3% in high-income countries, 88.5% in the WHO Region of the Americas, and 84% in the WHO European Region, highlighting substantial differences in outcomes across regions and income groups. The estimates represent the first assessment of five-year breast cancer survival across all 194 WHO Member States, providing countries with a baseline to monitor progress under the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI), which aims to reduce premature…