Death Rates from Cancer Declining

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http://www.courier-tribune.com/news/201 ... -years-ago

In the year to come, an estimated 1,688,780 in the United States are expected to get a cancer diagnosis, and cancer will claim the lives of a projected 600,920.

That death toll, however grim, represents a death rate from cancer that is 25 percent lower than it was a quarter-century ago — a drop driven by steady reductions in smoking rates and advances in early detection and treatment. Between 1991 and 2014, that boost in cancer survivorship translates to approximately 2,143,200 fewer cancer deaths than might have been expected if death rates had remained at their peak.


Better treatment protocols and more targeted therapies have driven the most dramatic improvements in the survival of patients with malignancies of the blood and lymph system, says the American Cancer Society’s annual report card on cancer.

In the mid-1970s, patients diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, for instance, stood a 41 percent probability of being alive five years later. For patients diagnosed between 2006 and 2012, those survival rates had increased to 71 percent. For chronic myeloid leukemia, five-year survival rates have increased from a dismal 22 percent in the mid-1970s to 66 percent, and new therapies allow most diagnosed before age 65 to achieve near-normal life expectancies.