U.S. News: Cancer Death Rate Has Dropped By a Third Since 1991

"The cancer mortality rate in the U.S. has dropped by a third in the past three decades, a report showed, but an increase in advanced prostate cancer diagnoses threatens to reverse some hard-won gains.

The American Cancer Society said Thursday that changes in preventive measures and screening in the past decade drove important trends in U.S. cancer incidence and outcomes. Cervical cancer rates dropped 65% from 2012 to 2019 among women in their early 20s after a generation of young women were vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV, for the first time.

But a decline in the use of a controversial test for prostate cancer likely led to more men getting diagnosed at later stages, the report found, with the highest incidence and mortality among Black men. The ACS said it would invest in research on prostate cancer and programs to boost access to quality screening and treatment.

The report was published in the journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The authors at ACS analyzed federal and state cancer registries for data on cancer rates through 2019 and federal mortality data through 2020, the report said.

Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the U.S., behind heart disease, with nearly two million cases and some 610,000 deaths estimated to occur in 2023, the ACS said. The decline in smoking rates, better early detection and innovative treatments have driven a drop in death rates since 1991, the report said, averting an estimated 3.8 million cancer deaths in that time.

The vaccine for HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical and other types of cancer, is one success story, ACS said. The Food and Drug Administration approved the first HPV vaccine in 2006 for girls and women ages 9 to 26. The youngest in that group are now adults, and cervical cancer rates for women in their early 20s have dropped more than expected from screening alone.

For prostate cancer, rates of advanced diagnoses have risen about 4.5% annually since 2011, the report found. The proportion of men diagnosed with later-stage disease has doubled. Declines in mortality rates have leveled off." [1]

1. U.S. News: Cancer Death Rate Has Dropped By a Third Since 1991
Abbott, Brianna.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 13 Jan 2023: A.3.