Role of the primary care physician

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy found among women in the United States and only lung cancer has a higher mortality rate. Breast cancer annual incidence is nearly twice that of any other female adult cancer and accounts for nearly one-third of all newly diagnosed cancers in women. The American Cancer Society estimates that there were 211 300 new cases of invasive breast cancer in 2002 and 39 800 deaths (Tables 1.1 and 1.2)1. A complete listing of United States breast cancer cases and deaths is shown in Table 1.32. The incidence of in situ disease has increased since the widespread use of mammogram screening programs.