10% of Breast Cancer Patients Are Either Unmarried or Skipped Breastfeeding

Nulliparous women — who haven’t given birth to a child by choice or due to medical reasons— and those who opt out of breastfeeding their newborn are more at risk of breast cancer than breastfeeding mothers, say oncologists in Bengaluru. Of all the breast cancer cases, over 8-10% are among those who are nulliparous, whose number was not more than 3-5% 10 years ago.

According to doctors, there’s a rise in the number of couples choosing not to have children, women delaying childbirth or marriage and infertility rate.

Doctors, however, said the survival rate of breast cancer patients has increased over the years. “Ten years ago, the survival rate of stage-3 breast cancer patients was not more than 55%, but now, it is over 80%. If a patient comes for treatment in the first and second stages of cancer, the survival rate is nearly 95%, which was 83% earlier,” said Dr Sandeep Nayak, director, surgical oncology, Fortis hospital. 

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