The number of new cancer cases and deaths are falling for both men and women for the first time since the government began compiling a report on long-term trends, researchers announced Tuesday.
Overall cancer death rates decreased an average of 1.8% a year from 2002 to 2005, the report shows. Death rates have been falling for a decade.
Researchers say they were particularly encouraged that the rate of new diagnoses also fell, by an average of 0.8% a year, from 1999 to 2005.
Those findings mark a change from the past, in which the cancer rate fell in men but rose or held steady in women as female smokers and former smokers succumbed to lung cancer. From 1995 to 1999, the overall rate of new cases in both sexes grew by 0.9% a year.
Declining cancer rates are particularly impressive given that the nation is aging, says John Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, one of the report's four sponsors.
Researchers say colorectal screenings have helped prevent many cancers. They also credit declines in smoking for much of the progress.
The report confirms earlier studies showing the cancer mortality rate would be virtually unchanged if it weren't for growing numbers of Americans rejecting tobacco, says author Ahmedin Jemal of the American Cancer Society, one of the report's sponsors.
"We often focus on treating diseases that may give someone a few months, but by preventing smoking, you can give someone 10 or 15 years," Jemal says.
Researchers have a wealth of evidence demonstrating how to cut smoking rates: increase cigarette taxes, ban smoking in public places, invest in educating young people and provide counseling for quitting smoking, says Therese Bevers, associate professor at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
A report in November from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the percentage of adults who smoke fell from 20.9% in 2004 to 19.8% in 2007.
California, which in 1990 became the first state to implement a wide-ranging anti-tobacco program, has reaped huge rewards. Lung cancer death rates there fell at an average of 2.8% a year from 1996 to 2005 -- twice the rate in many states of the South and Midwest, according to the report. California was also the only state where lung cancer cases and death rates fell in women.
Yet the USA could make much greater strides, Jemal says.
Cancer rates could be far lower if more people had access to screenings and treatment, he says.
"We discover breakthroughs, but we don't deliver them to everyone," Jemal says. "We need to make sure all Americans have timely access to prevention, so the entire population can benefit."
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