7 Healthcast: Breast cancer cases

The good news is that breast cancer death rates continue to fall at the steady rate of just over 2 percent a year, a trend that first began in 1990 and has continued through 2004.

American Cancer Society experts say this is the payoff from advances in early detection and treatment.

"The widespread public health screening programs of mammography and newer and better applications of drugs to prevent breast cancer occurrence has led to this astonishing decrease in the death rates for breast cancer," said oncologist Dr. Harold Burstein of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

The drop in death rates was biggest among younger women and smallest among African American women.

The report also finds fewer women are being diagnosed with breast cancer, a drop experts say is bad news because it reflects the recent decline in the number of women getting mammograms.

"Something like 25-35 percent of women are not regularly getting mammograms and that's something that clearly we need to do better about," Dr. Burstein said.

Adding to the challenges for policy makers and the medical community, a menu of details about lifestyle risk factors like obesity and alcohol use.

The take home message to all, knocking out the second leading cancer killer among women is definitely a group effort.

Breast cancer screening is important. Detecting cancer early leads to the best outcome.

One of the best screening tools is a mammogram and the American Cancer Society recommends women 40 and over have the test every year.

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