Cancer deaths continue to drop

The continued drop in overall cancer mortality rates over the last 20 years has averted more than three-quarters of a million (767,000) cancer deaths according to a new report from the American Cancer Society. The American Cancer Society's annual Cancer Statistics article reports that the overall death rate from cancer in the United States in 2007 was 178.4 per 100,000, a relative decrease of 1.3 percent from 2006, when the rate was 180.7 per 100,000, continuing a trend that began in 1991 for men and 1992 for women. In that time, mortality rates have decreased by 21 percent among men and by 12 percent among women, due primarily to declines in smoking, better treatments, and earlier detection of cancer.

The figures come from Cancer Statistics 2010, published early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The report and its consumer version, Cancer Facts & Figures 2010, include the estimated numbers of new cancer cases and deaths for 2010. Society epidemiologists predict there will be 1,529,560 new cancer cases (789,620 in men and 739,940 in women) and 569,490 cancer deaths (299,200 in men and 270,290 in women) in the United States in 2010.

Other highlights of Cancer Statistics 2010 include:

* Cancers of the lung, prostate, and colorectum in men and cancers of the lung, breast, and colorectum in women continue to be the most common fatal cancers. These four cancers account for half of the total cancer deaths among men and women.

* Among men, cancers of the prostate, lung, and colon will account for just over half (52 percent) of all newly diagnosed cancers. Prostate cancer alone will account for one in four (28 percent, 217,730 cases) of all cancer diagnoses in men. About nine in ten of these new cases of prostate cancer are expected to be diagnosed at local or regional stages, for which five-year relative survival approaches 100 percent.

* The three most commonly diagnosed types of cancer among women in 2010 will be cancers of the breast, lung, and colon, accounting for 52 percent of cancer cases in women. Breast cancer alone is expected to account for 28 percent (207,090) of all new cancer cases among women.

* Cancer incidence rates decreased in men 1.3 percent per year from 2000 to 2006 and in women 0.5 percent per year from 1998 to 2006.

* Death rates for all cancer sites combined decreased 2 percent per year from 2001 to 2006 in males and 1.5 percent per year from 2002 to 2006 in females.

* Mortality rates have continued to decrease across all four major cancer sites in men and in women except for female lung cancer, in which rates have stabilized since 2003 after increasing for several decades.

* Lung cancer incidence rates have been declining in men by 1.8 percent per year since 1991 and appear to be leveling off in women after increasing for many decades.

* Colorectal cancer incidence rates decreased markedly from 1998 through 2006, by 3 percent per year in males and by 2.2 percent per year in females.