Cancer Death Rate Has Declined in the US

In 2018, 1,735,350 new cancer cases and 609,640 cancer deaths are projected by the American Cancer Society (ACS) to occur in the United States.

Over the past decade (2005-2014), the cancer incidence rate was stable in women and declined by approximately 2% annually in men, while the cancer death rate (2006-2015) declined by about 1.5% annually in both men and women.

This decrease means that more than 2.3 million people have not died of cancer since 1991, which would otherwise have if the cancer rates had remained unchanged.

One of the biggest reasons behind this decline is the reduction in smoking.  Although lung cancer remains a leading cause of cancer death, death rates have dropped by 45% among men from 1990 to 2015 and by 19% among women from 2002 to 2015.

In the mid-1990s, the American Cancer Society Board of Directors made as a goal to cut the U.S. cancer mortality rate in half by the year 2015.  Though the goal of a 50% reduction has not been achieved the cancer death rate has been reduced and hopefully this trend will continue.