Gloucestershire named as late breast cancer diagnosis hotspot for under-50s
New charity data suggests where you live could affect how early breast cancer is found
Gloucestershire is one of 19 areas in the UK where more than 20% of women under 50 with breast cancer are diagnosed at a late stage, according to new data from a breast cancer charity.
CoppaFeel!, the UK's only breast cancer awareness charity for young people, says the figures show where you live could affect how early the disease is found.
The charity says the data should be taken as a wake-up call and is calling for targeted screening for younger women.
What the data shows
CoppaFeel! says people under 50 in some parts of the UK are up to four times more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer than in others.
Birmingham and Solihull tops the list of hotspots, with 30% of under-50s with breast cancer diagnosed at stage three or four.
In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, the figure is 7%.
A further 19 hotspots, including Gloucestershire, see more than 20% of women under 50 with breast cancer receive a late-stage diagnosis.
Others named include London, Lincolnshire, Coventry and Warwickshire, Greater Manchester, Norfolk, Cumbria, Kent, Yorkshire and Northamptonshire.
The charity says late diagnosis is directly linked to survival, with people diagnosed at stage one and two more likely to survive five years or more.
Five-year survival rates for all age groups are 82.1% in Northamptonshire, compared with 90.6% in Suffolk and North East Essex.
In Wales, five-year survival is 5-8% lower in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived.
The numbers diagnosed under 50 also vary by area.
A woman aged 25-49 in Derby is 66% more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than a younger woman in North East London.
On average, a woman under 50 is almost twice as likely to be diagnosed at a late stage as a woman over 60.
Calls for risk-based screening
CoppaFeel! is calling on the government to pilot risk-based screening for women aged 18-49.
It would involve a seven-minute risk assessment covering family history, polygenic risk through a simple saliva test, and breast density.
The charity says this would identify those who need earlier or more frequent screening, replacing a system that relies on age alone.
It also wants breast awareness built into all routine NHS appointments.
The charity says a two-to-three-minute conversation about signs, checking and when to seek help could be included in cervical screening, HPV vaccination and NHS Health Checks.
It says this could reach millions of young people every year at no significant extra cost.
Sophie Dopierala-Bull, director of services and engagement at CoppaFeel!, said: "Breast cancer is still treated too much like an older person's disease with women telling us they are dismissed as 'too young' when they first ask for help. Every late diagnosis represents a missed opportunity to treat the cancer before it spreads and becomes more difficult to treat. We are calling on the Government to pilot risk-based screening and teach younger women the warning signs and when to seek help as part of existing health checks which would transform outcomes for women under 50 at no significant cost."
'It lost me so much time'
Sarah Wallace, a 48-year-old from Solihull, was diagnosed with a rare type of fast-growing breast cancer in January 2025.
She started chemotherapy, but it did not work, so a few months later she began immunotherapy.
She had a severe reaction to the treatment and ended up in hospital.
A PET scan revealed the tumour had grown from 4cm to 14cm into her chest wall, and she needed emergency surgery to remove it.
Sarah spent three weeks in intensive care and had 40 hours of surgery.
She is now recovering and rebuilding her life.
Sarah said: "I had cysts ten years earlier that were benign, so I thought the lump was similar. People think that lumps have to be hard to be cancer and mine wasn't. Even the doctors didn't think it was breast cancer either. It lost me so much time."
She added: "That's why I back calls by CoppaFeel! for breast screening for younger women and for women to be provided with more information as part of routine health checks. If my breast cancer had been diagnosed earlier, then the tumor wouldn't have grown as much, and I wouldn't have ended up needing emergency major surgery to save my life. There also needs to be more research and treatments available for rare types of breast cancer like mine."
Breast cancer in the under-50s
According to CoppaFeel!, one in six breast cancer cases are in people under 50.
More than half of all cases each year are outside the national screening age of 50-70.
Younger people are more likely to have more aggressive forms of breast cancer, late recurrences and lower long-term survival, the charity says.