by Elana Gotkine

Overall cancer mortality is continuing to decline, according to a study published online Jan. 12 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

Rebecca L. Siegel, M.P.H., from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, and colleagues compiled the most recent data on population-based cancer occurrence and outcomes using data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

The researchers note that 1,958,310 new cancer cases and 609,820 cancer deaths are projected to occur in 2023 in the United States. For prostate cancer, incidence increased by 3 percent annually from 2014 to 2019 after two decades of decline, resulting in 99,000 new cases; otherwise, incidence trends were more favorable for men than women.

Lung cancer decreased at a lower pace in women than men from 2015 to 2019 (1.1 versus 2.6 percent annually); breast and uterine corpus cancers continued to increase, as did liver cancer and melanoma, both of which stabilized and decreased in men aged 50 years and older and younger men, respectively. During 2012 through 2019, there was a 65 percent decrease in cervical cancer incidence among women in their early 20s; this was the first cohort to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. From 2019 to 2020, the cancer death rate continued to decline (by 1.5 percent), contributing to a 33 percent decrease since 1991, with prevention of an estimated 3.8 million deaths.

"The large drop in cervical cancer incidence is extremely exciting because this is the first group of women to receive the HPV vaccine, and it probably foreshadows steep reductions in other HPV-associated cancers," Siegel said in a statement.

More information: Rebecca L. Siegel et al, Cancer statistics, 2023, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians (2023). DOI: 10.3322/caac.2176

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