Understanding Breast Cancer Survival Rates

BCRF breaks down breast cancer survival rates overall and by factors like stage and breast cancer type—plus what you need to know about this data

One of the first questions people diagnosed with breast cancer have is: Am I going to survive this disease?

In many cases, the answer is positive. Thanks to major advances in awareness, detection, and treatment, breast cancer outcomes have improved dramatically over the past few decades. Currently, the overall five-year survival rate for breast cancer stands at approximately 90 percent. While this is a major achievement, it’s important to understand that this figure is just an average. To provide you with the most accurate prognosis, your doctor must look at survival rates based on many factors that influence the course of your cancer, such as your age, race, stage, breast cancer type, hormone status, and HER2 status, and more.

How breast cancer survival rates are measured

Breast cancer survival rates can be measured in several ways, but “relative survival” is the preferred method. Relative survival is an estimate of the percentage of people expected to survive their cancer over a specific period of time, usually five years from the date they were diagnosed. To calculate five-year relative survival rates of breast cancer, the percentage of people who have the disease and are alive at the end of five years is divided by the percentage of people in the general population who are the same sex and age who are alive at the end of the same time period.

Survival rates are calculated with information from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database (SEER), which tracks information on thousands of people with specific types of cancer. SEER reports breast cancer survival rates across several factors, including by stage, subtype, and age. Your doctor looks at all these numbers when providing you with a personalized prognosis.

A few things to keep in mind when looking at the numbers:

• Breast cancer survival rates are always improving thanks to research, which is continually identifying new treatments for breast cancer. Therefore, if you’ve been diagnosed recently, your outlook may be better compared to women who were diagnosed five years ago since they had fewer treatment options at the time.
• The rates apply only to the stage of cancer when it’s originally diagnosed—not if/when the cancer grows, spreads, or returns following treatment (recurrence).
• Averages for all women diagnosed with the disease do not reflect your individual prognosis. Talk to your doctor about your individual diagnosis.
• Survival rates specific to triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) or inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) are discussed later in the article.

Breast cancer survival rates by stage

When SEER breaks down breast survival rates by stage at diagnosis, they use a staging system that may be unfamiliar to you. Typically, doctors discuss staging using the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Tumor, Node, Metastasis (TNM) system: stages 0 through 4. The lower the number, the less likely the cancer has spread, while higher numbers reflect more extensive spread to other organs beyond the breast and lymph nodes.

SEER, however, categorizes cancer stages in three groups: localized, regional, and distant.

Localized means that the cancer is confined to the breast. This stage includes invasive cancer but not ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a non-invasive subtype that originates and remains in the milk ducts. The localized five-year survival rate is more than 99 percent. The majority of breast cancer diagnoses (66 percent) are localized.

Regional describes cancer that has spread to nearby locations, such as the lymph nodes and chest wall. The regional five-year survival rate is 87 percent.

Distant means the cancer has spread, or metastasized, to distant organs. While it can be treated, it cannot yet be cured. The distant five-year survival rate is 32 percent.

When all SEER stages are combined, the average is 91 percent.

Breast cancer survival rates by subtype

Triple-negative breast cancer and inflammatory breast cancer are particularly aggressive, meaning they grow and spread much more rapidly than other subtypes of breast cancer. Prognosis is typically poorer for these subtypes. But again, new treatments are constantly improving outcomes, and averages do not reflect individual experiences.

Five-year relative survival rates for TNBC are:

• Localized: 91 percent
• Regional: 66 percent
• Distant: 12 percent
• All SEER stages combined: 77 percent

Five-year relative survival rates for IBC are:

• Localized: N/A (IBC has already spread to the skin when it’s diagnosed, so there is no localized stage)
• Regional: 52 percent
• Distant: 19 percent
• All SEER stages combined: 39 percent

Breast cancer survival rates by hormone receptor and HER2 status

When you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, your doctor will test for the presence of hormone receptors (HRs)—proteins located in the cells that are activated when hormones (estrogen and/or progesterone) bind to them.

Doctors also check for another protein, HER2, which is found on the surface of cells. HER2 is responsible for cell growth and repair, ensuring that they divide to replace those that are damaged or dying. In patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, the HER2 gene produces too many copies of itself, created too many copies of HER2 receptors, or both.

Identifying your HR and HER2 status is vital to developing a treatment plan for your cancer that is most likely to be effective. Thanks to research, there are now many medications that target HR-positive breast cancer and HER2-postive breast cancer. This makes a significant difference in survival rates compared to those for TNBC, since TNBC cells do not have the estrogen or progesterone receptors, nor do they have enough of the HER2 protein for these therapies to be effective—though that is changing for some patients because of research (see HER2-low breast cancer).

Five-year relative survival rates based on hormone receptor and HER2 status are:

• HR+/HER2-: 95.6 percent
• HR+/HER2+ (also known as triple-positive): 91.8 percent
• HR-/HER2+: 86.5 percent
• HR-/HER2-: 78.4 percent

Breast cancer survival rates by age at diagnosis

Survival rates are poorer for elderly breast cancer patients (75 and older) compared to their younger counterparts. The reasons for this aren’t well understood,  but studies have shown that older women tend to receive less aggressive treatment, including less adjuvant (post-surgery) hormone therapy or chemotherapy. They are also tend to have worse quality of life than younger women, and they’re more likely to be living with other health conditions (comorbidities), which are associated with decreased overall survival in breast cancer patients.

Overall five-year survival rates by age of diagnosis are:

• Younger than 45: 88 percent
• Ages 45 to 54: 91 percent
• Ages 55 to 64: 91 percent
• Ages 65 to 74: 92 percent
• Women 75 and older: 86 percent

Research on how specific comorbidities influence breast cancer survival rates is limited. However, a Danish study published in the journal Acta Oncologica that looked at 12 major morbidities in breast cancer patients revealed that the risk of dying from breast cancer was significantly increased for those with peripheral vascular disease, dementia, chronic pulmonary disease, liver disease, and renal diseases. The risk was higher in those with comorbidities diagnosed within five years of their cancer diagnosis compared to people whose comorbidities were diagnosed more than five years before their breast cancer diagnosis.

Obesity has also been shown to affect breast cancer survival. A study published in the journal NPJ Breast Cancer found that death from breast cancer is 1.3 times higher among obese women compared to normal weight women.

Breast cancer survival rates by sex

Breast cancer in men is rare, but those who have been diagnosed have a lower overall five-year survival rate than breast cancer in women—84 percent versus 91 percent, respectively. The difference can be attributed to several factors, such as low awareness of male breast cancer and the lack of breast cancer screenings in men. As a result, men are more likely to be diagnosed with regional- or distant-stage breast cancers, which are more challenging to treat than localized breast cancer.

Five-year survival rates for men are:

• Localized: 96 percent
• Regional: 86 percent
• Distant: 28 percent
• All SEER stages combined: 84 percent

Breast cancer survival rates by race

Race plays a significant role in breast cancer prognosis. The outlook is poorest among Black women, who have the lowest survival rate for every stage of the disease. Black women are also least likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer at the localized stage when treatment is most likely to be successful. There are many factors that account for these racial disparities. For instance, Black women have less access to high-quality healthcare, and they’re also more likely to be diagnosed with TNBC than white women.

The good news is that the breast cancer death rate has been declining in Black women by 1.4 percent per year. Rates have also been trending downward in white women (1 percent per year), and Hispanic women and Latinas (0.7 percent per year). They have remained stable in Native women and Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) women.

Overall five-year survival rates by race are:

• White women: 93 percent
• Black women: 84 percent
• Native women: 88 percent
• AAPI women: 92 percent
• Hispanic women and Latinas: 88 percent

For five-year survival rates by race and stage, see the American Cancer Society’s Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025 report.

Breast cancer survival rates by socioeconomic status

Socioeconomic status (SES) is defined by several factors, including income, wealth, living conditions, occupation, and education for individual people and their neighborhood or social network. SEER does not track survival rates by SES, but many studies have looked at differences in cancer outcomes in those with high SES versus low SES.

These have revealed that survival is shorter for people who have lower SES and who live in rural areas compared to those with higher SES and who live in or near cities. This finding applies to all races, though the disparities are more pronounced among Black women.

The bottom line on breast cancer survival rates

Many factors influence overall survival rates: stage at diagnosis, type of breast cancer, age, socioeconomic status, race, and more. The survival rates calculated based on SEER data and in other studies are averages and do not reflect an individual’s prognosis. To understand your individual outlook after a breast cancer diagnosis, talk to your doctor.

Research has drastically improved breast cancer survival rates over the last 50 years, and with more innovations in early detection and treatment, rates will continue to rise.