Around 1, 596, 670 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Within that number, about 571, 950, which is more than 1,500 each day, will die. These figures come from the June 17 report from the American Cancer Society. They update cancer incidence and mortality statistics every year. Their Cancer Facts and Figures 2011 provides a more in depth explanation of where the United States rates when it comes to cancer.
Dropping since the 1990s, cancer death rates have proceeded to decline among males and females in almost all racial and ethnic groups since 1998, according to the report. The ACS believes that the falling rate in cancer mortality rates from 1990 to 2007 designate almost 900,000 lives that could have been lost due to cancer but were not.
Even though they have been increasing since the 1930s, lung cancer death rates have been on the decline for women. For men, the death rates began to fall about 10 years ago. This said, lung cancer will be the cause of almost 25 percent of all cancer deaths for women in 2011.
From 1997 to 2007, cancer death rates for men plunged by 22.2 percent for men and for women by 13.9 percent. Most of the lessening was the result of decreasing mortality rates for colorectal and breast cancer for women and lung, prostate and colorectal cancers for men.
Disturbingly, the report notes that the American Cancer Society reveals that cancer death rates for the least educated are more than twice the amount of that for the most educated. The report claims that if this difference was eradicated, 37 percent of the premature cancer deaths that happened in 2007 among those between 25 to 64 years old, could have been prevented. This number mirrors more than 60,000 lives.
Even though all this is good news, cancer is still the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. The ACS reports that cancer is responsible for almost one in every four deaths. Currently, only heart disease kills more.