TRENDING DOWN

Cancer Death Rates Dropped a Whopping 33% Since 1991

But prostate cancer is on the rise for some Americans.

Finally, some good news: Overall cancer death rates have declined a massive 33 percent since 1991, according to statistics released by the American Cancer Society on Jan. 12. This drop has resulted in 3.8 million cancer deaths being prevented over that period. The ACS also found that rates of cervical cancer in women aged 20-24 plummeted by 65 percent from 2012 to 2019, with much of it due to the development and launch of the human papillomavirus vaccine. However, not all of the report was rosy. Researchers found that prostate cancer increased by 3 percent per year from 2014 through 2019 after declining for two decades—with rates of prostate cancer in Black men being 70 percent higher than white men. “The increasing percentage of men presenting with advanced prostate cancer, which is much more difficult to treat and often incurable, is highly discouraging,” Karen E. Knudsen, chief executive officer at ACS, said in a statement. “In order to end cancer as we know it, for everyone, it is imperative for us to focus on cancers where trends for incidence and mortality are going in the wrong direction.”