Cancer deaths have been on the decline for more than three decades — and are continuing to decline, despite the pandemic, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society.
The U.S. cancer death rate fell 1.5% from 2019 to 2020—part of an overall 33% decline since 1991 that prevented nearly 4 million deaths, according to an article published earlier this month in CA: Cancer Journal for Physicians, citing federal health statistics.
Positive trends occur due to advances in treatment. But it can eventually be dismissed by the incidence of breast, prostate, and uterine cancer, the authors warn.
Helping reduce mortality: a 65% decrease in cervical cancer diagnoses from 2012 to 2019 among women in their 20s—many among the first to receive the human papillomavirus vaccine, which is known to reduce cancer rates. The substantial decline “reflects a steep reduction” in the incidence of HPV-related cancers, which mostly occur in women, the authors wrote.
However, the rate of diagnosis of some types of cancer is increasing. Women’s breast cancer rates have risen slowly by about .5% a year since the mid-2000s, partly because of declining fertility rates and increasing obesity, the authors wrote. These factors may contribute to the increased incidence of uterine cancer, which has increased by about 1% to 2% annually since the mid-2000s.
The rate of prostate cancer diagnosis increased by 3% annually from 2014 to 2019, the authors wrote.
The report notes numerous racial disparities, including that prostate cancer death rates are two to four times higher for black men than others, and that black women have the highest death rates for uterine cancer.
The lifetime probability of being diagnosed with invasive cancer is about 40% and about 1.8 percentage points higher for men than for women, according to the report.
By 2023, nearly 2 million new cancer diagnoses are expected, with more than 600,000 deaths, he added.
Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the US, after heart disease and before COVID. In 2020, more than 600,000 Americans died from cancer, while about 350,000 died from COVID, according to federal health data.
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