Cancer Deaths Continue to Fall

Death rates from cancer in the U.S. have steadily declined by 18.4 percent among men and by 10.5 percent among women since they first started to fall in the early 1990s. But according to the American Cancer Society (ACS), the disease is likely to kill 565,650 people and 1,437,180--745,180 men and 692,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with it this year.

Cancer is the disease that takes most lives in the United States after heart problems.

"Death rates from cancer continue to decrease because of prevention, early detection and treatment," said Ahmedin Jemal, strategic director for cancer surveillance at the ACS. "These have been decreasing from the early '90s and, really, because of this decrease, over half a million deaths from cancer have been avoided."

According to the report, the number of actual deaths was higher (559,312) in 2005 compared to that in (553,888) 2004 but the rate continued to decline as the U.S. population grew more than the death rate fell in 2005.

"The increase in the number of cancer deaths in 2005 after two years of historic declines should not obscure the fact that cancer death rates continue to drop, reflecting the enormous progress that has been made against cancer during the past 15 years," said John Seffrin, Chief Executive Officer of American Cancer Society.

"This is both good news and bad news," said Dr. Louis Weiner, director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. According to him, it is good to know that deaths from cancer are declining but the anticipation of death due to cancer in more than half a million Americans is bad.

The death rate from colorectal cancer went down about 3 percent in 2005 from 2004, after dropping by 6 percent in 2004 from 2003.

Declines in death rates for lung and prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women were lesser in 2005 as compared to the prior two years.

The overall cancer rate dropped by 1 percent in 2005 from 2004 after falling by about 2 percent in each of the previous two years.

The report includes a special section pertaining to the impact of health insurance status on cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. Researchers from the American Cancer Society had reported earlier this week that people who either have no health insurance or rely on Medicaid are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced cancers.