October is the “Global Breast Cancer Awareness Month” launched by the World Health Organization, and a pink ribbon that has been fluttering in Europe since 1985 has now entered Beijing. Professor Xu Guangwei, President of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association and Chairman of the Chinese Medical Association Oncology Branch, told reporters at the China World Trade Center Hotel in Beijing on the 28th that breast cancer is the number one killer of women in Western countries, but the incidence of breast cancer among Chinese women has been growing rapidly in recent years, with an annual increase of 3%, making it the fastest growing cancer in urban areas in terms of mortality. Chinese women have a younger age of breast cancer onset, which begins to increase at age 30 and enters a peak at age 40 to 49, 10 to 15 years earlier than Western women. If universal screening can be carried out early it will enable many female patients to get early and effective treatment and improve the quality of life. According to several oncologists present, the increasing incidence of breast cancer among urban women year by year is closely related to the westernization of lifestyle in cities, especially big cities. High-fat diet, smoking, alcoholism, obesity, lack of exercise, high work pressure, and some women entering marriage age taking the fashion of not getting married or not having children after marriage have artificially formed the high-risk factors to induce breast cancer. In cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, the incidence rate of breast cancer has reached over 40/100,000. If we do not pay attention to this situation early, with the development of China’s economy and the gradual improvement of living standards, the incidence of breast cancer among women in large cities in China will gradually reach the level of Western countries, that is, one in every eight to nine women will have breast cancer. Human understanding of breast cancer has progressed through the last hundred years and now it is clearer that breast is not a localized cancer but a systemic cancer. It is now known that the cure rate of stage I breast cancer is 90%, stage II is 70% and stage III is 45%. With the help of modern medical methods, if we conduct screening, a large number of them may be found to be stage I breast cancer, but if we wait until the body has symptoms and then go to the hospital, the ones found may already be at an advanced stage. Breast cancer is one of the two tumors recommended by the World Health Organization for screening, and cervical cancer and breast cancer are growing in proportion to changes in living standards. In order to achieve the goal of “keeping women away from breast cancer and maintaining their physical and mental health”, the Ministry of Health, the Chinese CDC and the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association will jointly launch the “Million Women Breast Cancer Screening Project” in 2005. Through training of cadres, unifying technical programs, formulating operation specifications and various standards, it is planned to establish 80 to 100 breast cancer screening bases nationwide, so that all women of appropriate age can gradually enjoy convenient, fast and green regular screening to reduce the incidence rate, improve the quality of life and save medical resources.