12.2: Cancer Statistics

Death Rates

In the U.S., lung cancer is the most common cause of death from cancer in both men and women, responsible for 21% of cancer deaths in both men and women (Table 12-2).

In looking at deaths from various causes, keep in mind that if we don’t die of one thing, we eventually die of something else. If fewer die of heart attacks, other causes fill the gap. Prostate cancer is more common in older men. The longer a man lives, the more likely he is to get it. Fewer middle-aged men dying of heart attacks is partly responsible for additional older men (middle-aged men living longer) dying of prostate cancer.

Cancer rates differ by age, gender, race (Figure 12.1, 12-2). The 2015-2019 U.S. cancer deaths for Hispanic men were highest for lung—17% of their cancer deaths, prostate 12%, colon 10%. Hispanic women were highest for breast 15%, lung 13%, colon 9%. For Asian and Pacific Islanders, men were highest for lung 24%, liver 11%, colon 10%; women were highest for lung 19%, breast 14%, colon 9%.

Fig 12-1: Age-Adjusted Cancer Diagnosis Rates 1975-2018

Figure 12.2: Cancer Death Rates (2018-2020) Ages 35-69

Diagnosis Rates

In men, cancer is diagnosed most often in the prostate gland; in women, the breast. Lung is next (Table 12-2). More women get breast cancer, but more die of lung cancer. Only 22% of all lung cancer patients live five or more years after diagnosis because only 24% of lung cancers are found before they have spread. In contrast, breast cancer is detected much earlier, and the survival and cure rates are much higher; when found before it has spread, 5-year survival is 99%.

We get hints of what causes cancer and how to prevent it by comparing people from different countries (Figure 12.4), occupations, etc. An 18th century London doctor Percival Pott noted that chimney sweeps (boys who clean chimneys) tended to get nasal and scrotum cancer. He postulated that there was a cancer-causing substance in soot. A chimney sweep worked naked and not only got soot in his nose but “accumulated soot on the scrotum.” There was no proof that the soot caused the cancer, but the limited information was enough to recommend ways to prevent it.

Scientists noted that nuns have less cervical cancer and more breast cancer and looked for causes related to ways in which nuns differ from other women. We know now that sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cervical cancer, and that hormonal changes of childbearing lower the risk of breast cancer. Scientists used this information to develop the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, and to look for drugs to lower the risk of breast cancer, e.g., birth control pills that also help prevent breast cancer.