U.S. cancer death rate drops again 2006

ATLANTA – The U.S. cancer death rate fell again in 2006, a new analysis shows, continuing a slow downward trend that experts attribute to declines in smoking, earlier detection and better treatment.

About 560,000 people died of cancer that year, according to an American Cancer Society report released Wednesday. The new numbers show the death rate fell by less than 2 percent, but since that decline was better than the previous year, the cancer society applauded the progress.

Others said the change was not a big deal.

"The improvement was modest," said Dr. Michael Goodman, an Emory University researcher who specializes in cancer statistics.

Cancer is the nation’s number two killer, behind heart disease, and accounts for nearly a quarter of annual deaths. The cancer death rate has been falling since the early 1990s.

The new rate shows 181 cancer deaths per 100,000 people. That was down from about 184 in 2005.

It takes a rate decline of at least 2 percent to offset population growth and cause a drop in the actual number of cancer deaths. That happened in 2002 and 2003 for the first time since 1930. But it hasn’t happened since.

The explanation for why the death rate has fallen depends on the type of cancer. For example, better screening has improved deaths from colon cancer. Treatment advances are more of a factor in leukemia death rates. And smoking cessation is the main reason behind improvements in male lung cancer deaths.

"What we call ‘cancer’ is really a great variety of different conditions," Goodman said.

Lung cancer accounted for nearly 30 percent of cancer deaths in 2006. Cancers of the colon and rectum accounted for 10 percent, breast cancer in females about 7 percent and prostate cancers in men about 5 percent.

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