U.S. Cancer Death Rates Falling

The United States has experienced a major 2.1 percent drop in cancer deaths from 2002 to 2004, researchers reported Monday.

Dr. Richard Schilsky, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Oncology told The New York Times there was cautious elation over the findings.

Every 1 percent is 5,000 people who aren’t dying, Schilsky said. That’s a huge sense of progress at this point.

By gender during that period, males death rates declined 2.6 percent, while the female rate dropped 1.8 percent.

However, cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease, with 559,650 cancer deaths expected this year, the report said.

Since 1993, cancer death rates have been falling 1.1 percent a year on average, researchers said.

Resarchers credited smoking cessation, increased use of mammograms, colonoscopies and other tests rather than new cures for the decrease.

The report appears in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer.