Cancer deaths in the United States have fallen 33% since 1991, saving an estimated 3.8 million lives, according to a new report.
The American Cancer Society report attributed the three-decade trend largely to better early detection, lower smoking rates and improvements in treatment. The researchers also credited the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
The improved results are “really amazing,” Karen Knudsen, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, told CNN. “New insights into prevention, early detection and treatment have led to real and significant gains in many of the 200 diseases we call cancer.”
Between 2019 and 2020, the most recent date for which data is available, cancer mortality decreased by 1.5%. Researchers and doctors have warned that Covid-19, which has delayed cancer screenings for many Americans, was a serious setback, but to what extent is not yet known.
The Society’s report, which was published Thursday in a medical journal for cancer clinicians, noted that although cancer deaths are decreasing, death rates and cancer incidence have fluctuated significantly across cancer types. and different demographic groups.
Perhaps the most striking change was a “65% decline in cervical cancer incidence between 2012 and 2019 among women in their early twenties”, the report states – “the first cohort to receive the human papillomavirus [HPV] vaccine”.
“The sharp decline in cervical cancer incidence is extremely exciting” and “likely foreshadows large reductions in other HPV-associated cancers,” Rebecca Siegel, the report’s lead author, said in a statement. communicated.
There have also been resurgences of cancer, according to the report. For example, after declining for two decades, prostate cancer rose 3% per year from 2014 to 2019 – a reversal the researchers described as concerning. The study relied on data from central cancer registries and the National Center for Health Statistics.
Recent cancer data, however, is marked by racial disparities. The incidence of prostate cancer is 70% higher in black men than in white men, and black women are more likely to die of breast cancer than other groups, although white women have higher rates. breast cancer rates.
Last year, Joe Biden announced he was reviving the White House’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative with the goal of reducing cancer deaths by at least 50% over 25 years. In a statement on Thursday, Cancer Moonshot coordinator Dr Danielle Carnival said the new report showed “great progress”.
Falling cancer death rates reflect similar long-term trends for some other major diseases.
From 2010 to 2017, death rates among people living with HIV fell by 37%, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to a study published in the journal Circulation Research, age-adjusted cardiovascular mortality rates — that is, deaths from heart disease and stroke — fell by 22% between 1990 and 2013.
After rising from 1980 to 2000, the death rate from diabetes fell 26% between 2000 and 2014, according to a study published last year in the journal Population Metrics.
In contrast, drug overdose deaths have risen dramatically in recent years. The age-adjusted death rate involving synthetic opioids other than methadone rose 1,040% from 2013 to 2019, according to the CDC, and deaths involving psychostimulants — like methamphetamine — rose 317%.
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