The Kenya National Cancer Control Strategy (2017–2022) has been developed by a collaborative stakeholder approach led by the country’s Ministry of Health to ‘serve as the blue print to reduce the incidence, mortality of cancer, down-staging and improve survival rate and quality of life of cancer patients in Kenya’.

The current burden and the predicted catastrophic future increase in incidence and mortality of breast cancer in Kenya may be mitigated by advancing research into breast cancer risk factors, including genetics, and management to support prevention, control, treatment and survivorship. The median age at breast cancer diagnosis in the USA is 62 years, 2 while in Nairobi, which is the capital city of Kenya, the highest age specific incidence rate (per 100 000) is among those 40–49 years of age. Additionally, women are diagnosed at a younger age in Kenya. 1 These statistics highlight the huge burden in the incidence to mortality ratio for Kenya, which is a lower middle income country, versus that for the USA and UK, which are high-income countries. In comparison, the breast cancer incidence rates in the USA and the UK are much higher at 84.9 and 93.6 per 100 000, respectively, but the mortality rates are much lower at 14.9 and 14.4 per 100 000 population, respectively. By 2025, it is predicted that the annual incidence of breast cancer in Kenya will increase to 8052 and an annual mortality of 3448 (35% increase for both). The annual incidence of breast cancer in Kenya is about 5985 (12.5% of all new cancer cases) and the annual mortality is about 2553 (7.7% of all cancer deaths). Globocan 2018 statistics show that breast cancer incidence rate in Kenya is estimated at 40.3 per 100 000 with a mortality rate of 17.8 per 100 000. Breast cancer is a leading cancer in incidence among women in Kenya and a substantial contributor to early mortality.

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