The cancer mortality rate is continuing to decrease in America, but women – especially younger women – are seeing an uptick in diagnoses, according to new data released by the American Cancer Society (ACS).
The ACS report, published Thursday, includes statistics based on mortality data through 2022 and cancer incidence data through 2021 – which are the most recent years with compiled data available to the public.
After the smoking epidemic drove an increase in cancer deaths during the 20th century, the cancer mortality rate dropped by 34 percent in 2022 from its peak in 1991. The drop in the cancer mortality rate is driven largely by declines in the four most common cancers: lung, colorectal, breast and prostate, according to the research.
The rate of cancer deaths dropped by 1.7 percent each year, from 2013 to 2022, the most recent year with available data.
Cancer incidence also provides useful insight. Over the last few decades, cancer incidence has gone up gradually in women. From 1978 to 2021, cancer incidence in women overall rose by 23 percent – from 361.2 per 100,000 to 443.2 per 100,000.
Men, meanwhile, saw a dramatic spike in the early 1990s in cancer incidence because of a surge in early detection of asymptomatic prostate cancer, and then saw a steep decline from 2007 to 2013, before largely leveling off through 2021.
As a result, the gap between cancer incidence in men and women has continued to narrow in recent years – a trend driven most acutely by the rise in cases of young women.
In 2021, cancer incidence in women under 50 was 82 percent higher than in their male counterparts, with 141.1 cases per 100,000 people for women and 77.4 cases per 100,000 people for men. That marked an increase from 2002, when cancer incidence in women under 50 years was 51 percent higher than their male counterparts.
Middle-aged women, 50-64 years, also saw their relative cancer incidence increase compared to their male counterparts. By 2021, middle-aged women surpassed their male counterparts in cancer incidence rates, which were statistically equivalent, at 832.5 per 100,000 for women and 830.6 per 100,000 for men. In 2007, cancer incidence in middle-aged women was 21 percent lower than in their male counterparts.
Both cancer incidence data and cancer mortality rates provide useful data, but, according to the researchers, cancer mortality rates are the best way to measure “progress against cancer because they are less affected by changes in detection practice than incidence (new diagnoses) and survival rates.”
