Cancer Death Rate Continues Decades-Long Decline: American Cancer Society

The American cancer death rate has declined by an impressive 25 percent since its peak in 1991, the American Cancer Society announced Thursday.

In total, the society estimates that this reduction represents 2.1 million cancer deaths averted between 1991 and 2014, the last year for which data is available.

Over the past decade, the number of cancer diagnoses has decreased by around 2 percent per year for men, while holding constant for women; the rate of death has dropped for both sexes by about 1.5 percent each year.

“The continuing drops in the cancer death rate are a powerful sign of the potential we have to reduce cancer’s deadly toll,” said the society's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Otis Brawley.

“Continuing that success will require more clinical and basic research to improve early detection and treatment, as well as creative new strategies to increase healthy behaviors nationwide," he continued. "Finally, we need to consistently apply existing knowledge in cancer control across all segments of the population, particularly to disadvantaged groups.”

The researchers attribute declines in the incidence and deaths from cancer to improvements in efforts in managing prostate, lung and colorectal cancer rates.

Prostate cancers actually seem to be declining because there's been fewer tests; after experts raised concerns that prostate cancer was being overdiagnosed, because many cancers were being detected that would never require treatment, physicians now are less likely to recommend the tests.

For colorectal cancer, the opposite is the case: A significant increase in the rate of testing has led to a reduction in cancer diagnoses because doctors are able to detect and remove pre-cancerous growths.

Lung cancer rates have fallen as smoking continues to fall out of favor. The rate has fallen much faster in men than in women because tobacco use rose later and is falling slower among women.

Overall, men get diagnosed with cancer at a rate 20 percent higher than women, while their death rates from cancer are 40 percent higher.

In 2014, the cancer death rate was 15 percent higher among blacks compared to whites in the U.S. — but this gap has been declining since the '90s. And following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the uninsured rate for black Americans fell from 21 percent to 11 percent, which the authors speculate might help to decrease the racial disparities.

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