U.S. Cancer Death Rates Continue to Decline, National Report Finds

A report from the nation's leading cancer organizations shows rates of death in the United States from all cancers for men and women continued to decline between 2004 and 2008. The findings come from the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer.

The report also finds that the overall rate of new cancer diagnoses for men and women combined decreased an average of less than one percent per year from 1998 through 2006, with rates leveling off from 2006 through 2008. Edward J. Benz, Jr., MD, president of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, called the news encouraging, but is disappointed that the overall rate of cancer deaths is not falling nearly enough.

“The rate of cancer diagnoses and deaths across all racial and minority groups are slowly decreasing," said Benz. "But there are still gaps that must be addressed."

The report is co-authored by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, the National Cancer Institute, and the American Cancer Society. It will be posted on the web site of the journal CANCER on March 28, 2012.

Among children ages 19 years or younger, the report shows cancer incidence rates increased 0.6 percent per year from 2004 through 2008, while death rates decreased 1.3 percent per year during the same period.

The authors also highlighted cancers associated with excess weight and lack of sufficient physical activity.

"This report emphasizes that the growing obesity problem and decreased overall physical activity in our society compared to decades ago have a real impact on multiple diseases, including cancer,” said Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, MD, MPH, a colorectal cancer expert at Dana-Farber and author of several studies investigating the impact of exercise on survival rates for colorectal cancer patients. “While we currently see declines in incidence of many cancers, if obesity continues at the current rates, I believe these improvements in incidences will reverse and increase over time."

Breast cancer death rates have declined steadily since 1990. The drop has been larger among women under 50 (3.2% per year) than among women over 50 (2.0% per year).

An estimated 230,480 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2011. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, after skin cancer. Breast cancer accounts for nearly 1 in 3 cancers diagnosed in women. Men can get breast cancer too, but it is much rarer and accounts for only 1% of breast cancer cases in the United States. An estimated 39,520 women are expected to die from the disease in 2011.

In January 2008, the latest year for which statistics are available, approximately 2.6 million women living in the U.S. had a history of breast cancer. More than half of them were diagnosed less than 10 years earlier. Most of them were cancer-free, while others still had evidence of cancer and may have been undergoing treatment.