A new American Cancer Society report has shown that the cancer death rate in the US has continued to decrease for the 26th consecutive year.
The report, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, revealed that from 2016 to 2017, the overall cancer death rate in the US fell by 2.2%, the largest-ever single-year drop recorded by the country. This was attributed to a sharp decrease in lung cancer deaths.
Rebecca Siegel, first author of the report and scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, said: "What is really driving that is the acceleration in the decline of mortality for lung cancer, and the reason that is encouraging is because lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, causing more deaths in the US than breast, colorectal cancer and prostate cancers combined."
Siegel continued: "That's really important and reflects improvements in the treatment of lung cancer across the continuum from improvements in staging to advances in surgical techniques, improvements in radiotherapy, all of these things coming together."
"We were very encouraged to see that not only is the decline continuing for cancer mortality but we saw the biggest single-year drop ever from 2016 to 2017," she added.
The American Cancer Society report indicated that since its peak in 1991 of around 215 cancer deaths for every 100,000 people, the cancer death rate in the US has continued to decline yearly.
It showed an overall drop of 29% as of 2017, which means there were approximately 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths than what would have been if it stayed in its 1991 level.
Siegel said: "We've had this continuous decline in the cancer death rate for the past 26 years. The biggest driver is the reductions in smoking, but also contributing are improvements in treatment as well as early detection for some cancers, like breast and colorectal cancer."
Cancer is currently the second leading cause of death in the US, next to heart disease.
