Cancer Incidence Rate Continues Downward And So Does Cancer Mortality

Every year at about this time, the
American Cancer Society publishes the most recent data on cancer
incidence and mortality rates. The good news is again that rumors
of an increasing cancer epidemic are false. The latest
study in the journal CA: A Cancer Journal for
Clinicians reports:

During the most recent 5 years for which there are data
(2006-2010), delay-adjusted cancer incidence rates declined
slightly in men (by 0.6% per year) and were stable in women, while
cancer death rates decreased by 1.8% per year in men and by 1.4%
per year in women. The combined cancer death rate (deaths per
100,000 population) has been continuously declining for 2 decades,
from a peak of 215.1 in 1991 to 171.8 in 2010. This 20% decline
translates to the avoidance of approximately 1,340,400 cancer
deaths (952,700 among men and 387,700 among women) during this time
period.

On Sunday, the New York Times published a terrific
article, “Why
Everyone Seems to Have Cancer.” Short answer: Because everyone
is living long enough to get it nowadays. A significant proportion
of the explanation for why Americans are now living long enough to
get cancer is because of the steep drop in cardiovascular
mortality. See chart below:

As the Times article notes:

Surprisingly, only a small percentage of cancers have been
traced to the thousands of synthetic chemicals that industry has
added to the environment.

Surprisingly? I guess it is a surprise to most people given the
relentless misinformation peddled by environmental activists with
regard to the risks of exposures to trace amounts of synthetic
chemicals. In any case, the Times correctly concludes:

Maybe someday some of us will live to be 200. But barring an
elixir for immortality, a body will come to a point where it has
outwitted every peril life has thrown at it. And for each added
year, more mutations will have accumulated. If the heart holds out,
then waiting at the end will be cancer.

Maybe.
Advances in molecular medicine hold out the hope that the aging
broken cellular mechanisms that give rise to cancer can be
repaired.