Cancer Death Rates in the US Declining due to Smoking Cessation, Improved Treatment & Screening

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Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. today. And in 21 states, it has overtaken heart disease as the number one killer. On the bright side of things, the number of cancer deaths has steadily dropped in recent years, according to the American Cancer Society.

On the average, the cancer mortality rates dropped by 1.8 percent per year in men and 1.4 percent per year in women in the last 10 years. Since 1991, a 23 percent decline in cancer deaths was recorded, which means 1.7 million few Americans died of cancer through 2012, according to a report from Reuters.

"Part of the decline in cancer mortality rates is because of smoking cessation and some of our successes in battling tobacco," said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "Part of the decline is because of improvements in our ability to treat many of these cancers. And part of the decline is from the success of what I'll call 'wise screening.'"

The decline in the death from the four major forms of cancer, namely breast, colon, rectal and prostate cancers, has contributed to the decrease in cancer mortality rate, WCVB reported. There are also fewer lung cancer deaths as more people quit smoking.

According to Brawley, the number could get even better if the number of people having access to adequate health care is improved. He also pointed out the need to encourage people to undergo the good screening tests that we have today.

"I would point out that 55 percent to 60 percent of Americans over the age of 50 are up to date on colorectal cancer screening. We could save a lot of lives if we could just get to 80 percent by 2018," he said. "If you look at women over the age of 45, about a third to 40 percent are not up to date on mammography. Many have never actually even had a mammogram, and we need to work on that."

Rebecca Siegel of the American Cancer Society also cited another area of improvement, which is the gap between races in terms of the rates of new cancer diagnoses and deaths. She said that while there is an improvement in cancer prevention and early detection and treatment, it is not equally disseminated among the population.

For instance, black men have higher diagnosis and death rates than non-Hispanic white men for every malignancy other than kidney cancer. "A lot of progress has been made, but there is more work to do," she said.