Improvements in the understanding of cancer have led to advances in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, but a new report warns that despite the progress, the aging population is soon expected to make cancer the top killer of Americans with nearly 600,000 people dying this year.

The report from the advocacy group American Association of Cancer Research says that the trend is being mirrored globally as an estimated 13 million people are expected to die from the disease in 2030. Along with the growing loss of life will come increasing economic burdens. The group notes that the cost of cancer already is 20 percent higher than the cost of any other major disease.

The aging population is fueling the trend because more than 75 percent of cancer diagnoses occur in people aged 55 and older. As this population segment increases, the report forecasts that the number of cancer-related deaths will increase dramatically as a result.

Though the report touted the progress made in combating the disease—noting 13.7 million cancer survivors in the United States today and 11 new cancer drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past year—it says progress is in jeopardy because of a steady decline in federal funding for cancer research. That decline was worsened by sequestration, which slashed an additional $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health budget, a 5.1 percent decrease.

The report says while research has brought an era in which scientists are able to develop more effective therapies and save more lives, to continue to do so will require a bipartisan commitment from Congress and the administration to invest in the United States’ biomedical research enterprise.

Since 2003, the budgets for the NIH and the National Cancer Institute have steadily shrunk because they have failed to keep pace with biomedical inflation. The group says, as a result, there has been an effective 20 percent reduction in the ability of these agencies to support research. NIH is now funding the lowest number of research projects since 2001, and unless Congress takes action, sequestration will result in an overall reduction to the NIH budget of $19 billion by 2021, the report says.

“Cancer research and biomedical science are facing the most serious funding crisis in decades,” write AACR President Charles Sawyers and AACR CEO Margaret Foti in a letter accompanying the report. “Since 2003, the budgets for the NIH and the NCI have been steadily shrinking because the amount of funding provided to them by Congress each year has been significantly less than what is needed to just keep pace with biomedical inflation.”