A new report released Tuesday by the American Cancer Society provides some good news: Americans who had cancer in 2018 were less likely to die from it than a year earlier, continuing a steady decline in cancer mortality over the past 30 years. However hopeful this trend may be, however, there are still lower survival rates in different parts of the country and among black Americans. Experts also fear that the covid-19 pandemic will erase some of that progress.
The report is the Most recent in a long annual series conducted by the American Cancer Society. It is based on data collected by the federal government and states, including information on diagnosed cancer cases. These data are then used by the authors to estimate diagnoses and deaths from cancer in the coming year. This data takes time to collect and fully analyze, so the most recent report covers only until 2018.
The total number of cancer deaths in the United States tends to increase slightly annually, due to population growth. But the chances of someone dying from your cancer – in other words, the cancer death rate – once again fell in 2018. Compared to 2017, cancer mortality shrank 2.4% in 2018, the second consecutive year that saw a record drop in mortality. Since 1991, the overall cancer mortality rate has decreased 31%, accounting for about 3 million deaths avoided during that time.
There are some reasons for this continued decline, according to the authors. In the past three decades, for example, Americans have smoked less and had cancer tests earlier. Improvements in treatment have also helped, especially in recent years for a form of lung cancer known as non-small cell lung cancer. While lung cancer remains the most common cause of death, these improvements have helped to reduce lung cancer mortality more than any other cancer in the past five years.
Despite the successes, however, there are still underlying disparities in cancer treatment. The death rate in some states is much higher than in others, such as Mississippi and much of the Southeast, probably reflecting the lack of access to health care suffered by many residents. And while the gap in cancer treatment between black and white Americans has narrowed over time, it still exists. The average five-year cancer survival rate among white Americans between 2010 and 2016 was 68%, for example, compared to 63% for black Americans. Thousands of women also die from cervical cancer each year, which is now almost entirely preventable through testing and the HPV vaccine – although vaccination rates (about 50%) among teenagers are still well below rates almost universals seen in other countries.
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“While recent advances in the treatment of lung cancer and several other cancers are cause for celebration, it is worrying to see persistent racial, socioeconomic and geographic disparities for highly preventable cancers,” William Cance, medical and scientific director of American Cancer Society, said in a declaration released with the report.
The report estimates that about 1.9 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed this year and that 608,570 Americans will die from it. However, this estimate does not take into account the covid-19 pandemic, which began in late 2019 and continues to spread across the country and the world. Studies and experts warned that Americans’ access to cancer treatment was affected by the pandemic, reducing tests or even delaying treatment. This may affect not only the cancer death rate in 2020, but also in the years to come.
“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,” said report author Rebecca Siegel in the statement by ACS .