The risk of dying from cancer has dropped steadily for almost two decades, which meant that by 2019 regarding 3.5 million deaths from this disease will be prevented in the United States, showed this Wednesday the new annual report from American Cancer Society.
The 32% decline in cancer deaths since 1991 has been largely supported by the people who have quit smoking, which has resulted in a reduction in lung cancer cases or others related to it, detailed this organization.
The New therapies to treat colorectal cancer and breast cancer have also helped because fewer people with this disease have died, the report added.
In 2019 – the year for which the report provided the most recent figures – there were 146 cancer deaths per 100,000 people. In 1991, the year those deaths peaked, there were 215 per 100,000 people, according to the report.
“Progress once morest cancer has accelerated in the past decade due to advances in early detection, surgical techniques, and targeted therapies … Some recent treatments have been particularly notable because they have managed to treat difficult cancers, like metastatic melanoma and lung cancer, “said the association.
Despite the progress made, the organization said that The increased incidence of breast cancer and the advanced stage in which cases of prostate cancer are being detected are of concern.
And said that considers the persistent racial and socioeconomic gaps even more “alarming” that make minorities such as Hispanics have less access to treatments that can prevent cancer, such as receiving the vaccine once morest the human papillomavirus (HPV).
Cancer deaths in 2022
For this year, the organization estimated that 609,360 people will die affected by cancer in the United States, at a rate of 1,700 deaths per day.
The incidence will be higher because of lung, prostate and colorectal cancer in men; and pulmonary, breast and colorectal in women, according to the report.
While there has been a sharp decline in deaths from lung cancer, lung cancer will cause the largest number of deaths this year.
“More than 350 people will die every day (in 2022) from lung cancer, representing more deaths than those caused combined by prostate, breast and pancreatic cancer,” the association said.