by Playfuls Staff |
18th January 2007
There’s reason to celebrate as The American Cancer Society has reported a significant drop in cancer death rates.
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The number of U.S. cancer deaths has decreased significantly for the second year in a row in 2004. The American Cancer Society reported 553,888 cancer deaths in 2004, 3,014 fewer than in 2003. There were 369 fewer deaths in 2003 than in 2002, which was notable as the first recorded drop in cancer deaths in more than 70 years.
Doctors say that the 2003 number is so small that it can’t be hailed as a milestone in cancer treatment. The 2004 drop is tremendously significant though.
"It's very exciting," said Ahmedin Jemal, a cancer epidemiologist who prepared the report. "I think it's a turning point in our efforts to reduce the number of people dying from cancer. It's very good news."
The recorded drops in deaths came from three of the four major forms of cancer — breast, prostate and colorectal — and a decline in deaths among men from the fourth, lung cancer.
This comes as a result of several factors: a decline in cigarette smoking among men, wider screening of men and women for colon cancer, prostate and breast cancer, and better treatments, according to Jemal and others.
"There's a lot of good news in this report," said Linda Pickle, of the National Cancer Institute. "We hope that it's the beginning of a long-term downward trend and that we've finally turned the corner."
The rate of cancer deaths - the number of deaths per 100,000 people - has been dropping for more than a decade. But with the population steadily aging, the total number of cancer deaths kept climbing.
And there is also plentty of room for people to lead healthier lives, by making better lifestyle choices.
When researchers with the American Cancer Society first noted a decline in deaths in 2003, "we thought that it might be a random effect or a fluke," said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, lead author on the report released by the cancer society. "But the second year shows that it's real. What we're doing, it's working."
The American Cancer Society projects cancer cases and deaths through 2007, but it has confirmed data only through 2004.
Many more men still die from lung cancer - 89,575 men in 2004 compared with 68,431 women.
Also, 666 fewer women died of breast cancer and 552 fewer men died of prostate cancer in 2004, probably the result of increased detection and better treatment.
The most progress in turning around the numbers was in the category of colorectal cancer, where deaths fell by 1,110 for men and 1,094 for women in 2004. Deaths from breast cancer fell by 666, to 40,954, in 2004, and deaths from prostate cancer fell by 552, to 29,002.
For colorectal, breast and prostate cancer, the key to the falling number of deaths has been intensive screening, which can catch malignancies early enough to make treatment more successful. In the case of colorectal cancer, colonoscopies can reveal polyps that doctors can remove before they even turn cancerous.
What is most important now, and what can help save many more lives, is making early screenings more widely available, especially to those without insurance, and refining preventive measures and early treatments so they are specific to each person.
Jemal and others noted that while the number of Americans being diagnosed with cancer also appears to have plateaued, more than 1.4 million Americans will find out they have a form of the disease this year and about 560,000 will die, keeping cancer the second leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease.
"We clearly still have a long way to go," Jemal said.
