Time trends in breast cancer mortality between 1950 and 2008 in Japan, USA and Europe based on the WHO mortality database.

Mortality data, abstracted from the World Health Organization (WHO) database, are available for various countries. We used breast cancer mortality data from Japan, the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), Italy and France for the period 1950–2008. For the USA and the UK, data were available for 1950–2005 and 1950–2007, respectively. For Italy, data were available for 1951–2003 and 2006–2007, and for France, data were available for 1950–2007. Age-specific breast cancer mortality rates in adults over 40 years of age in the five countries between 1950 and 2008 are shown for females (Fig. 1).