Cancer mortality is decreasing. We so often hear negative stories about cancer. I am pleased to report that we see a decrease in overall cancer mortality in the United States. The good news extends to men and women, all races, and all ethnicities. The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer has much good to report, even as our work is not nearly done.
The report includes data from 2001 to 2018. I want to look at the analysis with you briefly. First, the highlights:
- Cancer deaths are declining in men, women, young adults, and adolescents.
- The decreases in cancer occurred among men and women in all major racial and ethnic groups.
- While death rates dropped, cancer incidence rates remained stable among men from 2013 to 2017 and increased slightly for women.
- Melanoma death rates have dropped significantly among men and women.
Cancer mortality is declining
Recently, declines in mortality have accelerated for melanoma and lung cancer. The declines for female breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer have slowed or stopped.
I put the numbers for selected cancers among men in graphic form:
For women, death rates dropped for 14 out of the 20 most common cancers. The mortality rates rose for uterus, liver, and bile duct (the kind within the liver) cancers.
That’s your up-to-date information on the status of cancer mortality. Overall, cancer death rates and death rates for many cancer types are decreasing. The drops in overall and lung cancer death rates have recently accelerated. Overall incidence rates remained steady for males.
The bad news? We continue to see increases in cancer incidence rates among women, children, adolescents, and young adults. Notably, colorectal cancer incidence and death rates are rising among young people.
Racial disparities persist. While cancer mortality rates decreased among all ethnicities and races between 2014 and 2018, African-Americans had the highest death rate at 183 per 100,000. Native Americans/Alaskan Natives followed at 163 per 100,000, whites at 160 per 100,000, Hispanics at 111 per 100,000, and Asian/Pacific Islanders at 98 per 100,000.
Thank you for joining me today. Let’s push incidence and mortality down through lifestyle, where possible.
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