Average lifespan shortened due to breast cancer in Australia, 1990–2015

Background This short report aims to investigate changes in lifespan of Australian women with breast cancer using the novel average lifespan shortened (ALSS) measure Methods We obtained the mortality data of Australian women with breast cancer from the World Health Organization mortality database for the 1990–2015 period. We calculated the age-standardized rate (ASR) according to the World Standard Population. We estimated the ALSS as a ratio of years of life lost in relation to the expected lifespan to examine changes in lifespan of Australian women with breast cancer over the study period. Results Over a 25-year period, the ASR of breast cancer deaths decreased from 20.5 to 12.6 deaths per 100,000 women. We observed a decline in ALSS values from 24.0% of their lifespan in 1990 to 22.0% in 2015. Conclusion The novel ALSS measure indicates an improvement of two percentage points in the lifespan of Australian women with breast cancer over the study