Improving Breast Cancer Outcomes Through Early Detection

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women (excluding non-melanoma skin cancers), accounting for more than one in four cancers diagnosed in American women. In the population at large, 12% of women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lifetimes. This year, that means that more than 192,000 women will be newly diagnosed with breast cancer, according to "US Markets for Breast Cancer Detection and DiagnosticTechnologies," a report recently issued by the Medtech Insight division of Elsevier Business Intelligence. Breast cancer represents a medical market growing through demographics, but also driven by advances in technology. The US market for breast cancer screening and diagnosis, which totaled more than $2.1 billion in 2008, is expected to grow at a healthy annual clip of 5.4% to more than $2.8 billion in 2013, despite the present economic uncertainty, including impending health care reform and cost/reimbursement issues.

Indeed, a case can be made that within the framework of increasing scrutiny on the cost-effectiveness of health care, effective...