Overall US cancer death rates decline – report

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More U.S. women are being diagnosed
with cancer, but rates among men are stable and cancer is
killing fewer people, according to a report issued on Tuesday.

Death rates from all cancers dropped by 1.1 percent per
year from 1993 to 2002, the annual Report to the Nation on the
Status of Cancer found. Prevention, earlier detection and
better treatments all helped lower the rates, according to the
report.

But minorities and women are not benefiting as much as
white males, said the report published in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute.

“The cancer incidence rate for all sites combined was 25
percent higher in black men than in white men, and the
incidence rates for black men were more than 50 percent higher
than those in white men for myeloma and cancers of the
prostate, lung, stomach, liver, esophagus, and larynx,” the
researchers wrote.

And the cancer death rate overall was 43 percent higher in
black men than in white men.

The National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North
American Association of Central Cancer Registries join forces
every year to compile the report on the 15 most common U.S.
cancers.

DECLINE MORE PRONOUNCED AMONG MEN

This latest report details actual incidence and death rates
in recent years, data that takes years to collect and analyze.

“Overall cancer death rates for all racial and ethnic
populations combined decreased by 1.1 percent per year from
1993 through 2002; the decline was more pronounced among men,”
the researchers write.

“Death rates decreased for 12 of the 15 most common cancers
in men (i.e., lung, prostate, colon and rectum, pancreas, non-
Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, bladder, stomach, and brain and
other nervous system, myeloma, oral cavity, and melanoma) and
for nine of the 15 most common cancers in women (i.e., breast,
colon and rectum, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, brain,
stomach, myeloma, cervix, and bladder).”

Overall cancer rates stayed the same for men but increased
by 0.3 percent per year for women.

“Among women, lung cancer death rates increased from 1995
through 2002, but lung cancer incidence rates stabilized from
1998 through 2002,” the researchers wrote.

Lung cancer rates among women are likely to fluctuate as
women who began smoking in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s develop
cancer as a consequence — and then they will go down to
reflect the decreased popularity of smoking.

Cancers whose rates went up also include melanoma, breast
cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer and esophageal cancer.

“These numbers reflect a trend in reduction of cancer
mortality that has now persisted for nine years,” former
National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach,
now acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, said in a
statement.

“This can only be considered good news for the millions of
cancer survivors who have benefited from recent research and
treatment advances and emphasizes the expectation that we will
achieve a time when no one will suffer or die from cancer.”

In January the American Cancer Society predicted that 1.372
million Americans would be diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and
570,280 would die of it, compared to 1.368 million cases in
2004 and 563,700 deaths.