Cancer death rates in the United States hit a record drop of 2.4% in 2018, marking a record for the second consecutive year and contributing to a 31% drop since 1990, the American Cancer Society announced Tuesday.
The organization linked progress – which translates to about 3.2 million fewer deaths – to less smoking and continued advances in lung cancer treatment, representing almost 50% of the total drop in deaths from 2014 to 2018.
The overall cancer mortality rate among men and women in 2018 was 149 cases per 100,000 people.
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“The improved treatment accelerated progress against lung cancer and led to a record drop in overall cancer mortality, despite the slowdown in the momentum for other common cancers,” says a report published Tuesday in the CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Cancer ranks second in the nation’s leading causes of death after heart disease, although it still poses the biggest threat among Hispanics, Asian Americans and Alaskan natives, according to the report.
In addition, the American Cancer Society projected 608,570 cancer deaths in 2021, with almost 1.9 million new diagnoses, or 5,200 new cases per day. However, these estimates did not take into account the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as interruptions in examinations and care.
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“The impact of COVID-19 on population-level cancer diagnoses and outcomes will be unknown for several years because of the time required for data collection, compilation, quality control and dissemination,” said Rebecca Siegel, lead author, in a statement. . “We anticipate that interruptions in access to cancer treatment in 2020 will lead to increases in advanced stage diagnoses that may hinder progress in reducing cancer mortality rates in the coming years.”
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Dr. William Cance, medical and scientific director of the American Cancer Society, expressed concern about the “persistent racial, socioeconomic and geographical disparities” for preventable cancers.
“There is an ongoing need for greater investment in equitable cancer control interventions and clinical research to create more advanced treatment options to help accelerate progress in the fight against cancer,” said Cance.
According to the report, “survival rates are lower for black patients than for whites for all cancers except pancreas and kidney, for which they are the same”.
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It is important to note that colorectal cancer surpassed leukemia in 2018 as one of the main causes of cancer deaths among younger men aged 20 to 39 years.
In 2021, prostate cancer is expected to represent the highest percentage of new diagnoses among men, with 26% (or about 248,000 cases). Among women, it is estimated that breast cancer accounts for 30% of new diagnoses, with lung and colon cancers afterwards for both sexes in about 12% and 8%, respectively.