U.S. Cancer Death Rate Sees Largest-Ever Single-Year Drop, Report Says

An American Cancer Society report in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians found the U.S. experienced its largest-ever single-year drop in overall cancer deaths from 2016 to 2017, partly due to a sharp reduction in lung cancer deaths, reports CNN . "The reason that is encouraging is because lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, causing more deaths in the U.S. than breast, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancers combined," said the American Cancer Society's Rebecca Siegel. "That's really important and reflects improvements in the treatment of lung cancer across the continuum from improvements in staging to advances in surgical techniques, improvements in radiotherapy, all of these things coming together." Analysis revealed that the U.S. cancer mortality rate has continued to decline from its 1991 high of about 215 cancer deaths for every 100,000 people. As of 2017, the overall death rate slipped by 29 percent, or approximately 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths than what would have occurred if death rates had remained at their peak.