Cancer Mortality Continued to Decline Through 2022

THURSDAY, Jan. 16, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Cancer mortality is continuing to decline, but the incidence of certain cancer types is increasing, especially among women, according to the Cancer Statistics, 2025 report published online Jan. 16 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 incidence data collected by central cancer registries and mortality data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (through 2021 and 2022, respectively).

The authors project that 2,041,910 new cancer cases and 618,120 cancer deaths will occur in the United States in 2025. Cancer mortality continued to decline through 2022, averting almost 4.5 million deaths since 1991 due to reductions in smoking, earlier detection of some cancers, and improvements in treatment. However, concerning disparities persist, with the highest cancer mortality seen among Native Americans, including for kidney, liver, stomach, and cervical cancers, the rates of which are two to three times higher than that seen among White people. Compared with Whites, Blacks have twofold higher mortality for prostate, stomach, and uterine corpus cancers. Cancer incidence has declined in men in general, but has increased in women, narrowing the male-to-female rate ratio from 1.6 in 1992 to 1.1 in 2021. In women aged 50 to 64 years, rates have surpassed those in men (832.5 versus 830.6 per 100,000), and women younger than 50 years have a higher incidence rate than their male counterparts (82 percent compared with 51 percent in 2002).

“This progress is tempered by rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women,” Siegel said in a statement.

Cancer Statistics, 2025