NIH Reports Overall Death Rates From Cancer Steadily Declined From 2001 to 2022

In their Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, NIH reports that overall death rates from cancer were in steady decline from 2001 through 2022.

Among men, “overall cancer incidence, measured as the rate of new cancer diagnosis, decreased from 2001 through 2013 and then stabilized through 2021. Among women, overall cancer incidence increased slightly every year from 2003 through 2021, with the exception of 2020.”

This reduction in cancer deaths is attributable largely to “declines in both incidence and death rates for lung cancer and several other smoking-related cancers.” The incidence of cancers associated with obesity, however, has been rising, including “female breast, uterus, colon and rectum, pancreas, kidney, and liver cancers.” New diagnoses of breast cancer “gradually increased over the study period, but the overall breast cancer death rate decreased.”

Cancer death rates in children “declined steadily over the study period,” and they also decreased “for each major racial and ethnic population group” from 2018 to 2022. Cancer incidence also “declined sharply in 2020, likely due to pandemic-related disruptions in healthcare, but returned to pre-pandemic levels by 2021.”