Good News: Cancer Deaths Drop Again
It wasn't a fluke. The number of U.S. deaths from cancer fell between 2003 and 2004, for the second straight year, and by an even greater margin than the previous year's first-ever drop. The new statistics from the American Cancer Society suggest that prevention efforts, screening, and advances in treatment are working.
The ACS said that the number of cancer deaths fell by more than 3,000 in 2004, to 553,888, compared with a decline of 369 the year before. That earlier drop was the first ever recorded in the actual number of deaths, as opposed to the rate per 100,000 people. (The ACS also projected that the number of cancer deaths this year will be about 560,000 but noted that that estimate may be too high given the recent positive trend.)
Overall, fewer people died from all the major cancers in 2004–lung, breast, prostate, and colon. The number of women who died of lung cancer edged up; that disease is the leading cause of cancer death in females. The ACS cited prevention (like quitting smoking), screening (as in colonoscopy and mammography), and better treatments (improved chemo regimes and targeted therapies) for the drop.
Still, advocates said there was more to be done. The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the sister organization of the ACS, called on the White House and Congress to increase funding to the National Cancer Institute, whose budget was cut in fiscal year 2006 for the first time in a decade. The NCI budget cuts totaled $32 million in fiscal 2006, out of a total budget of almost $4.8 billion.
"The answers that have resulted in the benefits we're seeing today came as a result of clinical trials, and if we can't continue to work like that we're never going to get results," argues Cheryl Perkins, senior clinical adviser at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She points out that despite the good news, 178,000 women will still be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 40,000 will die.
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