Overall U.S. Cancer Incidence Rate Continues to Fall

Every year the National Cancer Institute publishes data on cancer incidence and death rates in the U.S. The good news is that both continue to fall. News stories tend to focus on the success that modern biomedicine is having in curing cancer, but not getting cancer in the first place is even better. The new report in the Journal of National Cancer Institute can be downloaded here. To the results:

Trend analysis showed that overall cancer incidence rates for all racial and ethnic groups combined decreased by 0.8% per year during the most recent period, 2003–2007 (Table 1); a statistically significant decrease of 0.6% per year was noted in women, whereas a non-statistically significant decrease of 0.8% per year was noted in men that was influenced by a recent (2005–2007) non-statistically significant increase in prostate cancer incidence. Incidence for prostate and breast cancers, two of the most frequently diagnosed cancers, showed possible changing trends. Cancer of the prostate showed a non-statistically significant annual increase of 3.0% in 2005–2007, after a statistically significant decrease in 2001–2005. The trend analysis of breast cancer in women showed a decrease from 1999 until 2007. However, inspection of the annual breast cancer incidence rates during this period (data not shown) revealed that, after a sharp decrease in rates in 2002–2003, the lower rates subsequently remained stable.

With regard to the slowdown in the decrease in breast cancer incidence, it is perhaps because the effects of the big drop in post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy are now largely complete.

Looking further back, the article also reports that the average annual percentage change in cancer incidence has been falling at a rate of 0.8 percent for both sexes since 1998. Looking at the more recent trend, the report finds that cancer incidence declined a 1 percent per year between 2003 and 2007. Overall cancer death rates declined by 1.4 percent per year between 1998 and 2007. More recently, cancer death rates fell by 1.6 percent per year between 2003 and 2007.

Comments

[Organic Girl Wannabe]

""But everyone knows cancer is increasing because of the GMOs, the preservatives and pesticides, and the.... the.... CHEMTRAILS..... This is just what they WANT you to think.""

[Old Mexican]

Overall U.S. Cancer Incidence Rate Continues to Fall

Which is why we need single-payer, so the USA can reach parity with the rest of the industrialized, developed world... where the proportion of deaths by cancer is HIGHER, especially the curable ones.

[Nick]

More people smoke pot every year. Coincidence?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The National Cancer Institute is reporting themselves right out of relevance. Their business stategy is an idiot.

[GSL]

You mean the American healthcare system performs really well on measures that could be construed as outcomes of medical care? That's not what Tony told me would happen.

[mr simple]

Don't know if this has been brought up yet, but:
Oral sex leading cause of oral cancer

Other reports say highest incidence found in white men. There's a joke in there somewhere.

[Free2Booze]

So giving your partner a facial is really a way of showing that you care.

[Tman]

And it's not just cancer rates that are getting better. The Journal had a piece earlier this week - The March of Health Progress - that listed some unbelievable statistics about US Healthcare progress.

Start with the fact that life expectancy in the U.S. rose again to 78.2 years in 2009, from 78 a year earlier....We have added an extra decade to American life spans since 1950, and three decades over the last century....Infant mortality rates hit an all-time low of 6.42 per 1,000 live births, as did death rates for children under the age of five. This means that the devastation of losing a child to early death is rarer now than at any time in history....According to the CDC, the "age-adjusted death rate decreased significantly for 10 of the 15 leading causes of death," including heart disease, malignant neoplasm (cancer), various chronic diseases of the liver or respiratory system, influenza and pneumonia. Death rates from accidents and homicide also fell significantly.

Does anyone (besides the Chony's of the world) really believe that Obamacare will do anything to continue this trend in the positive direction?

[fresno dan]

All you have to do is overlay a graph of porn viewing and longevity. More porn, longer life. Irrefutable.
Now, I am off to a Japanese lesbian massage site...for the health benefits.

[Mo]

What's the overall cancer incidence rate when you exclude smoking-related lung cancer from the stats?

[Ron Bailey]

Mo: A lot of the incidence decline can be attributed to three things (1) smoking cessation (2) hormone replacement cessation, and (3) more colonoscopies to remove pre-cancerous polyps.

[GoNavy]

(2) hormone replacement cessation

Wasn't this a fairly recent change. Not arguing, but I am surpried that this would feed through into the stats that quickly. Afterall, it does take 20 plus years of smoking to start seeing cancer. Therefore,I would guess it would take 20 plus years after smoking cessation for the cancer rate to start decreasing.

[Rick Caird]

If that were true, would it not be an argument saying there is no benefit, in terms of reduced cancer risk, due to quitting smoking? Otherwise, I would expect an acceleration in the decline of smoking related cancers.

[GoNavy]

Sorry, my description is bad.

As an individual the benifit of quitting smoking is immediate.

My comment is wondering about the affect of a lower rate of smoking on the cancer stat for a large group.

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[Dee G]

Unquestionably less smoking, less exposure to industrical/warfare chemicals (since we don't really manufacture much anymore, and the Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange with high prostate cancer rates will taper off), elimination of HRT and early colon/breast cancer detection helps immeasurably in the stats. Pancreatic cancer, where we have low incidence but crap diagnosis/therapeutic response, remains dismal vis. survival rates. Re GoNavy and ceasing HRT, note that it became popular in the late 80s/early 90s in post-menopausal women, so eliminating it will rapidly show up in the stats given the older nature of the patient population. Also in the 90s we learned that some breast/uterine tumors were estrogen-dependent, which is why drugs (eg anastrozole, letrozole) were designed to suppress estrogen. That led to a swift turnaround in standard of care.

[Forsyth S.]

I wonder what the drop has been from the decline of highly toxic chemicals in the air/water/soil since the 1970s and the decay of the massive amount of nuclear materials dumped in the atmosphere during the 1950-60s?

Generations of people have now grown up without constant exposure and buildup of a lot of fairly nasty stuff.