Study: More European Women Diagnosed With Advanced Breast Cancer

European women are far more likely to not be diagnosed with breast cancer before the disease has spread, and are therefore less likely to survive than women in the United States, according to a report by Datamonitor.

The researchers said that in the United States, more than 1.3 million women with breast cancer had either stage I or stage II disease -- indicating the tumor is relatively small and still localized within the breast.

Only 69,000 American women have the more advanced stage III or IV disease, where the tumor is larger and the cancerous cells may have spread to the lymph nodes or other parts of the body, according to the researchers.

In dramatic contrast, some 800,000 patients in Europe had either stage I or stage II disease, and 200,000 European women had the more advanced stage III or IV.

"This difference can largely be attributed to an increased emphasis on early diagnosis and early treatment in the U.S., thereby reducing U.S. patient numbers in the stages III and IV and increasing the chance of patient survival over 5 years," the researchers reported.

Among major European countries, Germany has the highest rate of stage IV breast cancer followed by France and Italy, according to the researchers.

Other sources: Datamonitor