Cancer rates in the United States declined in the period from 2003 to 2007 while the odds for surviving the disease rose, a government study showed on March 31. The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer showed a decline of slightly less than one percent per year for new cancer diagnoses for men and women over the period.
Cancer deaths over the period fell by 1.6 percent annually, according to the report that included contributions from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society.
The drop in cancer death rates continues a trend that began in the early 1990s but the report showed that for the first time, lung cancer death rates decreased in women, more than a decade after rates began dropping in men. This probably reflects the fact that more women took up smoking while men began to quit, and females have since lowered their tobacco use. Overall cancer incidence rates in men were essentially unchanged, the report said, citing a small uptick in prostate cancer rates that offset lower rates of other cancers. Childhood cancer incidence rates - in those age 19 or younger - increased while death rates in this age group decreased. "It is gratifying to see the continued steady decline in overall cancer incidence and death rates in the United States - the result of improved methods for preventing, detecting, and treating several types of cancer," said Harold Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute.
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