Drops in the number of people smoking, improved treatments, and earlier detection continue to push the death rate from cancer in the United States lower, a new report from the American Cancer Society finds. The overall death rate from cancer in the United States in 2007 fell 1.3 percent from the previous year to 178.4 per 100,000.

That continues a positive trend underway for more than 20 years. The cancer death rate for men in the United States fell 21 percent since 1991 and the cancer death rate for women fell 12 percent. The findings are published in the online version of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. In the report, American Cancer Society 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.

 

Among men, cancers of the prostate, lung, and colon will account for just more than 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.

For males under age 40 years, leukemia is the most common fatal cancer, while cancer of the lung and bronchus predominates in men aged 40 years and older.

 

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 (207,090) of all new cancer cases among women.

Among females, leukemia is the leading cause of cancer death before age 20, breast cancer ranks first at ages 20 to 59, and lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death at ages 60 and older. In fact, lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in women in 1987, and is expected to account for 26 percent of all female cancer deaths in 2010

 

The researchers say that the expected numbers of new cancer cases and cancer deaths should be interpreted with caution because these estimates are based on statistical models and may vary considerably from year to year. Not all changes in cancer trends can be captured by modeling techniques and sometimes the model may be too sensitive to recent trends, resulting in over- or under-estimates. For these reasons, the estimates should not be compared from year-to-year to determine trends; age-standardized cancer incidence and death rates are the best way to monitor changes in cancer occurrence and death.