India reported more than two lakh new breast cancer cases in 2024, Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said on 31 October 2026, as officials put early breast cancer screening at the centre of a new awareness effort. Srivastava spoke at an event marking the release of commemorative postage stamps for breast cancer awareness. She said an estimated one in 29 women faces a lifetime risk of developing the disease. Breast cancer remains the most frequently diagnosed cancer among Indian women, accounting for over 30 per cent of new cancer cases in the female population.
Delayed detection remains a major problem, Srivastava said, despite rising public awareness and the availability of screening services. She encouraged women to seek regular breast cancer screening, to stay aware of changes in their bodies and to use government healthcare facilities and digital health services for timely diagnosis. The Department of Posts has brought out commemorative stamps and picture postcards to promote awareness and preventive healthcare. The campaign uses India’s postal network to carry information about early detection and breast cancer screening to households across the country.
What breast cancer screening figures show
The 2024 figure sits inside a longer rise. Data from the National Cancer Registry Programme, tabled in Parliament, put breast cancer cases at about 2.13 lakh in 2021 and almost 2.4 lakh in 2025. Breast cancer deaths rose from about 91,700 in 2021 to over 1.03 lakh in 2025. The Union health ministry said the rise reflects a growing disease burden and better detection through expanded screening programmes. Estimates from the International Agency for Research on Cancer released in September 2026 put annual new cases at nearly 2.4 lakh, about 30 per cent of all cancers in Indian women.
An Indian Council of Medical Research study of more than 17,000 women found that 57 per cent were diagnosed only after the cancer had spread beyond the breast to armpit lymph nodes or nearby tissue. Figures from women diagnosed between 2012 and 2015 show about 81 per cent of those whose cancer was found while still confined to the breast were alive five years later. In the United States, where screening is routine, the figure is more than 99 per cent for cancer caught while still in the breast, against 32 per cent once it has spread to distant organs. Treatment has improved since then, and radiation for early breast cancer now often takes one to three weeks.
Where breast cancer screening happens
Breast cancer screening runs alongside oral and cervical cancer screening under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases. The programme works through more than 1.8 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs. Officials said about 86.97 crore screenings have been carried out nationwide. The break-up is 49.02 crore screenings for oral cancer, 22.90 crore for breast cancer and 14.05 crore for cervical cancer. Around 5.50 lakh people found through the programme are now receiving treatment, including 2.70 lakh oral cancer patients, 1.43 lakh breast cancer patients and 1.37 lakh cervical cancer patients.
Population-based screening for breast and cervical cancer targets people aged 30 years and above. The Centre operates 770 district non-communicable disease clinics, 364 district day-care cancer centres and more than 6,400 clinics at community health centre level. The government has approved 297 more district day-care cancer centres for 2025-26. Cancer facilities across 22 new All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, 19 State Cancer Institutes and 20 Tertiary Cancer Care Centres form part of the same expansion. Dr Pragya Shukla, head of clinical oncology at the Delhi State Cancer Institute, said the data reinforce the need to speed up breast cancer screening, human papillomavirus vaccination, early referral and affordable treatment.
Delays that breast cancer screening aims to cut
Doctors in Meghalaya said women often delay screening for three to six months after noticing a lump, frequently mistaking the sign for a harmless bodily change. Dr Harit K. Chaturvedi, chief executive officer and clinical head of the Apollo Oncology Network, said those delays cost lives. He recommended medical assessment for symptoms lasting more than three weeks and said women aged 40 and older should prioritise mammograms. India sees about 2.25 lakh new breast cancer diagnoses every year, according to the Meghalaya reporting, with cases rising by roughly 2 to 2.5 per cent annually.
Srivastava’s message at the stamp release was simple: early diagnosis through breast cancer screening improves treatment outcomes. Officials repeated that expanding breast cancer screening access and encouraging early medical consultation remain central to reducing the impact of cancer. The postal campaign gives that message a physical carrier, with stamps and postcards moving through a network that reaches towns and villages far from cancer centres.