Cancer death rates are falling in the US

Americans now have a lower chance of dying of cancer, largely thanks to better early detection, advanced treatments and prevention. Researchers have shown that over the past three decades these factors have led to a big fall in cancer death rates. The study was published in the journal Cancer Research.

According to Dr Eric Kort of Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and colleagues, all age groups have seen some improvement. But the biggest falls were among younger adults aged 35 to 45. "Basically, the younger you are, the faster the rates are falling," Kort says.

Kort said the focus on cancer prevention, including stop-smoking programmes, has been a major factor. "We're also benefiting from progress in early detection and better treatment, and these benefit younger people first. The best example is our progress against childhood cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma, which has let countless people survive diseases once known to be fatal and incurable."

Other improvements include life-saving screening tests, such as mammograms for breast cancer and colonoscopy for colon cancer, which can find cancer at an early stage when it is much easier to treat.

The study measured the fall in cancer deaths by age. Kort's team analysed cancer death and population data from the World Health Organization's statistical information system, looking at cancer death rates by age and by 10-year birth group, starting in 1925.

"Everyone born since 1930 has had a lower risk of dying of cancer at every age," Kort said. The most important improvement was in people aged 35 to 45, whose cancer death rate fell by 25.6% per decade; in older groups it fell by 6.8% per decade.

Although government estimates showed only a modest improvement in cancer deaths over the 20th century until the mid-1990s, Kort said that "doesn't give us the full picture", because those statistics average all age groups into one combined rate. "The problem is that most cancer deaths happen in older Americans."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US, killing about 560,000 people a year; heart disease remains the leading cause, with more than 630,000 deaths a year.