Over 1.6 million new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed worldwide last year, a major conference in Glasgow has been told.

According to latest findings, the global burden of this disease remained ‘immense' in 2013. While most new cases were diagnosed in women in developed countries, half of all deaths from the disease occured in the developing world.

Some 450,000 women die from breast cancer every year.

Commenting on this issue, Prof Peter Boyle of the International Prevention Research Institute (iPRI) in France, noted that while countries with screening programmes and accessible treatment have seen a fall in breast cancer deaths, ‘not all women worldwide have been able to benefit from these advances and the contrast between the situation in rich and poor countries is staggering'.

However even within developed countries, there can be ‘considerable differences' due to social class and a person's lifestyle.

Research has shown that in Glasgow, for example, ‘two women with breast cancer of the same age, presenting for the same treatment at the same time, and with the same tumour characteristic, may have a 10-point percentage difference in five-year survival simply because one comes from an affluent area of the city and the other from a deprived area'.

For women in low income countries, such as Africa, the situation is even worse. Prof Boyle noted that women in these areas tend to only seek treatment when the disease has already spread. Often by this stage, palliative care is the only real option for them. However palliative care can be poor or non-existent in some areas.

"We found that in high income countries, such as the UK and Australia, there were very few women who were diagnosed initially with stage III or IV (advanced and metastatic) disease, whereas in countries such as Kenya and Uganda almost all women with breast cancer presented at stage III or IV," Prof Boyle said.

He noted that survival rates decrease significantly between the different stages of breast cancer.

"Given that the difference in survival when going from a stage I to a stage II breast cancer is approximately 12 percentage points, and from a stage III to a stage IV around 30 percentage points, it is clear that our first priority should be to do all we can to encourage women in low-income countries to present to their doctor before their breast cancer is at such advanced stage that cure is no longer possible," he insisted.

He said that the number of new breast cancer cases diagnosed every year will continue to grow for a number of reasons, including greater awareness of the disease, longer life expectancy and the introduction of screening programmes.

"It is not as though breast cancer is a new disease - it has been around for thousands of years - or as though it cannot be treated effectively," Prof Boyle added.

He presented these findings at the 9th European Breast Cancer Conference in Glasgow today (March 21).