Cancer Death Rates Continue to Drop

USA Today

Small but continued drops in cancer incidence and deaths in the United States in recent years are charted in a new report.

Between 2004 and 2008, death rates for cancer went down by 1.8 percent a year in men and 1.6 percent a year in women, the American Cancer Society (ACS) reported Wednesday.

And from 1990 through 2008, death rates plunged almost 23 percent for men and just over 15 percent for women.

"Cancer death rates in the U.S. have continued to decrease since the early 1990s," said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior author of the new report, published online Jan. 4 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. "As a result of this, about a million cancer deaths were averted." Read More