U.S. Cancer Rates in Freefall As Americans Quit Smoking: Report

About 1.5 million Americans avoided an early death over the last 20 years due to falling cancer fatality rates, according to the findings of a new study. 

The American Cancer Society released its annual Cancer Statistics 2015, revealing an overall 22% drop in cancer deaths over the last two decades. Researchers involved in the study point toward the move away from smoking as the main reason for the falling numbers.

The report compiled data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival and included information from the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for Health Statistics.

The data will be released in two separate reports, but the information from the Cancer Statistics report will soon be published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

Health experts attribute the decrease in cancer incidence to fewer Americans smoking tobacco, a result of the tobacco prevention campaign over the last 20 years. Advances in cancer prevention and early detection and treatment have also contributed.

Overall, the cancer death rate rose during most of the 20th century, peaking in 1991, as a result of increases in lung cancer from the tobacco epidemic.

The new research revealed an average annual decline in cancer death rates in men of 1.8% over 2007 to 2011 and 1.4% decrease in women during the same time.

Lung cancer death rates declined 36% in males by 2011 and 11% in females.

Breast cancer death rates were also down by more than 35%. Prostate and colorectal cancer decreased by 47%.

The report indicated cancer death rates declined in every state; however southern states had the smallest decline, about 15%, and northeastern states had the largest decline, 25% to 30%.

The Cancer Statistics report also offers estimates on new cases of cancer for the upcoming year. This year’s report estimated more than 1.6 million new cancer cases for 2015, with more than a half million deaths attributed to cancer by the end of the year. This estimate equals nearly 1,600 deaths per day.

Researchers indicate prostate, colorectal and lung cancer will account for nearly half of all cases in men. While in women, the three most commonly diagnosed cancers in 2015 are predicted to be breast, lung, and colorectal, which will account for half the cases in women.

During the past five years, the cancer incidence rate remained stable in women, but declined in men by 1.8%. Breast cancer rates flattened, but a rise in thyroid cancer rates was seen, with an average of a five percent increase each year since 2007.

“The continuing drops we’re seeing in cancer mortality are reason to celebrate, but not to stop,” said John R. Seffrin, PhD, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society. “Cancer was responsible for nearly one in four deaths in the United States in 2011, making it the second leading cause of death overall.”

Despite the decreasing deaths, the report estimates the number of new cancer cases will overtake heart disease as the leading cause of death within only a few years.