October marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month around the world. The aim is to highlight the importance of breast cancer awareness, education and research. That’s because, every 15 seconds, a woman somewhere in the world is diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s every 10 minutes here in the UK.

Yes, it’s scary, and it’s likely that most of us have been or will be affected by it at some point. But: the earlier the detection, the better the chances of survival.

While 78% of diagnosed patients survive the disease each year, over 11,000 people don’t – but 23% of these are preventable cases. Early diagnosis has been proven to result in higher success rates, as more than 90% of women diagnosed at the earliest stage survive their disease for at least five years. That is in comparison to around 15% of women diagnosed with the most advanced stage of disease.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Jennifer Garner’s mammogram video serves as an essential reminder