Here is the plain text result without any additional lines or formatting:
More Americans are surviving cancer, but the disease is striking young and middle-aged adults and women more frequently, the American Cancer Society reported on Thursday.
And despite overall improvements in survival, Black and Native Americans are dying of some cancers at rates two to three times higher than those among white Americans.
These trends represent a marked change for an illness that has long been considered a disease of aging, and which used to affect far more men than women.
The shifts reflect declines in smoking-related cancers and prostate cancer among older men and a disconcerting rise in cancer in people born since the 1950s.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, but the leading cause among Americans under 85. The new report projects that some 2,041,910 new cases will occur this year and that 618,120 Americans will die of the disease.
Six of the 10 most common cancers are on the rise, including cancers of the breast and the uterus. Also increasing are colorectal cancers among people under 65, as well as prostate cancer, melanoma and pancreatic cancer.
Despite increases in some early-onset cancers, like colorectal cancer and testicular cancer, “overall rates are flat in men under 50 and decreasing in those 50 to 64,” said Rebecca L. Siegel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society and the report’s first author.
Several other troubling trends are outlined in the report. One is an increase in new cases of cervical cancer — a disease widely viewed as preventable in the United States — among women 30 to 44.
The incidence of cervical cancer has plummeted since the mid-1970s, when Pap smear screening to detect precancerous changes became widely available. But recent surveys have found many women are postponing visits to their gynecologists.
Women are also being diagnosed at younger ages. Cancer rates are rising among women under 50 (so-called early-onset cancer), as well as among women 50 to 64.
Lung cancer has been declining over the past decade, but it has decreased more rapidly in men. Women took up smoking later than men and took longer to quit.
Smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and will account for almost 500 cancer deaths daily in 2025, mostly from lung cancer, the American Cancer Society said.
There is growing concern that e-cigarettes and vaping may contribute to this burden in the future, given their carcinogenic potential and wide popularity.
Breast cancer rates have also been inching up for many years, increasing by about 1 percent a year between 2012 and 2021. The sharpest rise has been seen in women under 50, and there have been steep increases among Hispanic American, Asian American and Pacific Islander women.
Uterine cancer is the only cancer for which survival has actually decreased over the past 40 years, the A.C.S. said.
Death rates are also rising for liver cancer among women, and for cancers of the oral cavity for both sexes.
Pancreatic cancer has been increasing in incidence among both men and women for decades. It is now the third leading cause of cancer death. As with many other cancers, obesity is believed to contribute.
Little progress has been made in the understanding and treatment of pancreatic cancer. Death rates have been rising since record-keeping started, rising to 13 per 100,000 in men and 10 per 100,000 in women today, up from about five per 100,000 in both men and women in the 1930s.
The lack of progress has frustrated many scientists and physicians. The cancer is often fairly advanced when diagnosed, and the five-year survival rate is only 13%.
Some experts are beginning to acknowledge that environmental exposures may be contributing to early-onset cancer, in addition to the usual suspects: lifestyle, genetics, and family history.
I think that the rise in not just one but a variety of cancers in younger people, particularly in young women, suggests there is something broader going on than variations in individual genetics or population genetics … it strongly points to the possibility that environmental exposures and our lifestyles in the US are contributing to the rise of cancers in younger people.
Death from cancer is often a sign of a long, chronic process that was not caught or treated while there was still time to act.
The report by the American Cancer Society echoes a growing unease among oncologists and public health experts that the rates of various cancers are changing, and that our focus on the usual suspects: lifestyle, genetics, and family history, may need to shift to include a broader range of factors, including environmental exposures and changes in our lifestyles.
Source link
