The group's annual Cancer Statistics article reports the overall death rate from cancer in the United States in 2007 was 178.4 per 100,000. That's a relative decrease of 1.3 percent from 2006, when the rate was 180.7 per 100,000 -- continuing a trend that began in 1991 for men and 1992 for women. In that time, mortality rates have decreased by 21 percent among men and by 12 percent among women, due primarily to declines in smoking, better treatments, and earlier detection of cancer.
The continued drop in overall cancer mortality rates over the last 20 years has averted more than three-quarters of a million cancer deaths according to the report.
The report and its consumer version, Cancer Facts & Figures 2010, include the estimated numbers of new cancer cases and deaths for 2010. ACS epidemiologists predict there will be 1,529,560 new cancer cases (789,620 in men and 739,940 in women) and 569,490 cancer deaths (299,200 in men and 270,290 in women) in the United States in 2010.
Cancers of the lung, prostate, and colorectum in men and cancers of the lung, breast, and colorectum in women continue to be the most common fatal cancers. These four cancers account for half of the total cancer deaths among men and women.
Among men, cancers of the prostate, lung, and colon will account for just over half (52 percent) of all newly diagnosed cancers. Prostate cancer alone will account for one in four (28 percent, 217,730 cases) of all cancer diagnoses in men. About nine in ten of these new cases of prostate cancer are expected to be diagnosed at local or regional stages, for which five-year relative survival approaches 100 percent.
The three most commonly diagnosed types of cancer among women in 2010 will be cancers of the breast, lung, and colon, accounting for 52 percent of cancer cases in women. Breast cancer alone is expected to account for 28 percent of all new cancer cases among women.
Death rates for all cancer sites combined decreased 2 percent per year from 2001 to 2006 in males and 1.5 percent per year from 2002 to 2006 in females. Mortality rates have continued to decrease across all four major cancer sites in men and in women except for female lung cancer, in which rates have stabilized since 2003 after increasing for several decades.
"This report is yet more proof we are creating a world with more birthdays," said John R. Seffrin, Ph.D., chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and its advocacy affiliate, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). "We will build on our progress in the fight against cancer through laws and policies that increase access to cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment services, and with a sustained federal investment in research designed to find breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of the most deadly forms of cancer."
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