Breast cancer: a neglected disease for the majority of affected women worldwide.

Recent progress with declines in mortality in some high-income countries has obscured the fact that for the majority of women worldwide who are newly diagnosed, breast cancer is a neglected disease in the context of other numerically more frequent health problems. For this growing majority, it is also an orphan disease, in that detailed knowledge about tumor characteristics and relevant host biology necessary to provide even basic care is absent. With the possible exception of nutritional recommendations, current international cancer policy and planning initiatives are irrelevant to breast cancer. The progress that has occurred in high-income countries has come at extraordinary fiscal expense and patient toxicity, which of themselves suggest nonrelevance to women and healthcare practitioners in middle- and low-income countries. The implications of these circumstances appear clear: if the promise of the now 60-year-old Declaration of Human Rights that the fruits of medical science accrue to all mankind is to be realized with respect to breast cancer, a basic and translational global research initiative should be launched.