Cancer Death Rates Continue to Decline

Continuing a trend that began more than 2 decades ago, the death rate from cancer in the US dropped 1.3% year-over-year in 2010. It now stands at about 178 people per 100,000 per year.

The news is contained in a report prepared by epidemiologists at the American Cancer Society and published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The scientists estimate there will be about 1,530,000 new cancer cases in the US in 2010 (790,000 in men and 40,000 in women), and 569,000 deaths due to cancer (299,000 in men and 270,000 in women) in the US in 2010.

According to the report, cancer death rates have dropped 21% in men, and 12% in women since 1991. The report attributes the fall-off to fewer people smoking, improved treatment, and better screening.

In men, cancers of the prostate, lung, and colon will be the cause of 52% of all newly diagnosed cancers this year. Prostate cancer alone will cause 28% of these, and 90% of these cases will be discovered at local or regional stages, for which the five-year survival rate is nearly 100%.

In males who are less than 40 years of age, leukemia is the most common fatal cancer. In older men, lung cancer becomes the leading killer.
 
For women, cancers of the lung, breast and colon account for 52% of newly diagnosed cancer cases. Breast cancer alone will cause of 28% of all new cancers in women this year.

Leukemia is the leading cause of cancer death among women less than 20 years old. Breast cancer ranks first for those between the ages of 20 and 59. After that, lung cancer becomes the leading cause of cancer death.

Lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in women in 1987. It will be responsible for 26% of all cancer deaths in women this year.

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