The impact of scaling up access to treatment and imaging modalities on global disparities in breast cancer survival: a simulation-based analysis

Abstract

Background: Female breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world, with wide variations in reported survival by country. Women in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) in particular face several barriers to breast cancer services, including diagnostics and treatment. We aimed to estimate the potential impact of scaling up the availability of treatment and imaging modalities on breast cancer survival globally, together with improvements in quality of care.

Methods: For this simulation-based analysis, we used a microsimulation model of global cancer survival, which accounts for the availability and stage-specific survival impact of specific treatment modalities (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and targeted therapy), imaging modalities (ultrasound, x-ray, CT, MRI, PET, and single-photon emission computed tomography [SPECT]), and quality of cancer care, to simulate 5-year net survival for women with newly diagnosed breast cancer in 200 countries and territories in 2018. We calibrated the model to empirical data on 5-year net breast cancer survival in 2010-14 from CONCORD-3. We evaluated the potential impact of scaling up specific imaging and treatment modalities and quality of care to the mean level of high-income countries, individually and in combination. We ran 1000 simulations for each policy intervention and report the means and 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) for all model outcomes.

Findings: We estimate that global 5-year net survival for women diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018 was 67·9% (95% UI 62·9-73·4) overall, with an almost 25-times difference between low-income (3·5% [0·4-10·0]) and high-income (87·0% [85·6-88·4]) countries. Among individual treatment modalities, scaling up access to surgery alone was estimated to yield the largest survival gains globally (2·7% [95% UI 0·4-8·3]), and scaling up CT alone would have the largest global impact among imaging modalities (0·5% [0·0-2·0]). Scaling up a package of traditional modalities (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, ultrasound, and x-ray) could improve global 5-year net survival to 75·6% (95% UI 70·6-79·4), with survival in low-income countries improving from 3·5% (0·4-10·0) to 28·6% (4·9-60·1). Adding concurrent improvements in quality of care could further improve global 5-year net survival to 78·2% (95% UI 74·9-80·4), with a substantial impact in low-income countries, improving net survival to 55·3% (42·2-67·8). Comprehensive scale-up of access to all modalities and improvements in quality of care could improve global 5-year net survival to 82·3% (95% UI 79·3-85·0).

Interpretation: Comprehensive scale-up of treatment and imaging modalities, and improvements in quality of care could improve global 5-year net breast cancer survival by nearly 15 percentage points. Scale-up of traditional modalities and quality-of-care improvements could achieve 70% of these total potential gains, with substantial impact in LMICs, providing a more feasible pathway to improving breast cancer survival in these settings even without the benefits of future investments in targeted therapy and advanced imaging.

Funding: Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, and National Cancer Institute P30 Cancer Center Support Grant to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.