Report: U.S. Cancer Rates Have Fallen for at Least 25 Years

The American Cancer Society released a report on January 8 by Rebecca Siegel showing that the cancer rates in the U.S. have been falling for at least 25 years. Although that is good news, cancer is the second-most common cause of death in the U.S., with more than 1.7 million new cancer cases each year and more than 600,000 cancer deaths. The report notes that one of the biggest factors in decreased cancer rates are lower tobacco smoking rates. Improvements in early detection and treatment are also a factor.
Unfortunately, obesity-related cancer deaths are increasing, and deaths caused by prostate cancer have leveled out—they were dropping.
Cancer death rates increased in the U.S. until the early 1990s, the report notes. It has dropped ever since, decreasing 27 percent between 1991 and 2016. As mentioned above, this is related to smoking. Lung cancer rates have dropped by almost 50 percent among men since 1991. Siegel notes that it is a delayed effect from a drop in smoking that began in the 1960s.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. For twenty years prostate cancer death rates dropped. From 2013 to 2016, however, those rates flattened. Researchers and physicians wonder if that stagnation is related to a 2011 decision by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to stop recommending routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood testing for men.