Cancer Death Rates Are Falling

The Economist: How we’re gradually winning the war on cancer

Cancer death rates are dropping as prevention, better screening, and new treatments reshape the decades-long fight against the disease.

War against cancer: A victory in progress as death rates tumble with new drugs, screening and prevention

The chances of getting affected by cancer increase as people age. Since the 1990s, the age-adjusted death rate related to cancer has fallen considerably

Cancer death rates are falling

More than 50 years after then-US President Richard Nixon declared a “war on cancer,” the world is largely winning that battle. The age-adjusted cancer death rate has fallen since the 1990s, signaling a “steady but successful war of attrition,” The Economist wrote.Progress has come through thousands of small advances in screening and treatment: Childhood leukemia had a five-year survival rate of about 60% in 1975; now it’s about 90% in the US. Su…

The Hot Spot: Why we're investigating cancer in Iowa

Iowa Starting Line is launching “The Hot Spot: Investigating Cancer in Iowa,” a comprehensive look at why our state stands alone in its rising cancer rates. Why? Because the human cost undeniable. My grandmother Mary Jane died in 2005, her lungs destroyed by decades of cigarette smoke. When my dad was deployed to Iraq, she more or less raised me. And so when cancer finally took her life, I took it hard.  Her death had been a long time coming. An…