US cancer death rate sees largest-ever single-year drop, report says

[Recursion]

Source: CNN

The rate of people dying from cancer in the United States continued to decline for the 26th year in a row, according to a new American Cancer Society report.

From 2016 to 2017, the United States saw its largest-ever single-year drop in overall cancer deaths, a 2.2% plunge spurred in part by a sharp decline in lung cancer deaths, according to the report, published Wednesday in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

"What is really driving that is the acceleration in the decline of mortality for lung cancer, and the reason that is encouraging is because lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, causing more deaths in the US than breast, colorectal cancer and prostate cancers combined," said Rebecca Siegel, first author of the report and scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta.

"That's really important and reflects improvements in the treatment of lung cancer across the continuum from improvements in staging to advances in surgical techniques, improvements in radiotherapy, all of these things coming together," she said. "We were very encouraged to see that not only is the decline continuing for cancer mortality but we saw the biggest single-year drop ever from 2016 to 2017."


Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/08/health/cancer-death-rate-largest-decline-year-us-study/index.html

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Because we could use some good news. Also: fuck cancer.

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Good

[Scotch-Irish]

2. And that is partly because smoking cigarettes has become a social stigma

and so many millions of people have quit.

That's a good thing!

[spinbaby]

4. A very good thing

I know a woman now who’s struggling with lung cancer. She never smoked, but her parents were chain smokers, so secondhand smoke likely caused her cancer. Having a smoke-filled house was acceptable in the 60s, but thankfully isn’t anymore.

[Recursion]

5. Ed Murrow took up smoking because a man who didn't smoke wasn't considered trustworthy

Amazing what can change in a few decades

[yaesu]

3. This will change, mostly due to fascists kicking people off expanded Medicaid and destroying ACA

also, cutbacks on research, back the greed of the drug companies to charge outrages prices. This is the last gasp of hope.

[matt819]

6. I'm skeptical

Because we live in an age where reality is not quite as real as it has been in the past. You just have to factor in self-interest - individual, corporation, non-profit, political party, etc. And it also seems that being a "professional," e.g., doctor, lawyer, is irrelevant. And article I read yesterday (somewhere online) observed that there are 51 lawyers in the Senate, many Republicans, and they have no trouble bending reality to meet their objectives. Add in outright corruption, and it's damn difficult to assess the veracity of any claims. I doubt corruption is at play with the American Cancer Society, but everything else is.

Also, there are tons of ways to play with statistics. Just look at the unemployment figures, for example, If you've given up looking for work, you're not unemployed; you just disappear from the statistics.

So. . . good news? Maybe. A trend? Maybe. But with health care accessibility increasingly at risk in the US and costs astronomical, you have to question this. Also, while the apparent reduction in lung cancer has contributed to the statistics reported, what about other cancers with less obvious causes and perhaps less effective treatments. Those people can certainly get lost in the statistical flurry.

Just saying.

[Recursion]

7. Umm, reality though

health care accessibility increasingly at risk in the US

It's at risk, yes, but the accessibility is greater now than it was for decades before the ACA.

Also, just, no: oncologists simply aren't hiding hundreds of cancer deaths. Expertise is a thing; otherwise we might as well all just be Trump voters.

[Aristus]

8. 2019 is the year my mother survived kidney cancer.

We're getting there...

[Bigredhunk]

10. :-)

Awesome news!

Happy for you and your family Aristus.

[IronLionZion]

9. As soon as Trump took office, he started saving people from cancer

This is all because of Trumpcare and Pence's cancer moonshot initiative https://archive.bidencancer.org/

[OnlinePoker]

11. CDC has a great resource at the following link

If you go to the Trends tab, you can select a specific type of cancer. It then has an annual map of all the states dating back to 1999 showing the incidents of that cancer type.

https://gis.cdc.gov/Cancer/USCS/DataViz.html

[TlalocW]

12. This makes no sense

The number of cancer-causing, power-producing windmills has only increased in recent years.

TlalocW

[Recursion]

13. Never fear: Don Quixote is on the job

[aggiesal]

14. Curious to find out if Obamacare (ACA) ...

early detection of cancer helped with these numbers.

By early detection, I mean that people now had insurance to see a doctor
that diagnosed a cancer early. Without ACA, people went without seeing
their doctor, and issues like cancer lingered within.

If so, it's a feather that ACA should wear proudly.

[Recursion]

17. Unfortunately early detection has been something of a bust for most cancers

We've gotten really good at detecting them early but in most cases it hasn't led to lower mortality rates, just greater survival times (irritatingly, "survival" is defined as the time period from diagnosis to death, so by definition earlier detection increases survival times). There are some cancers that seem to respond well to earlier treatment, but the big thing here seems to have been far fewer people smoking.

[aggiesal]

18. So if survival times are longer ...

cancer rate for this year may have gone down because those with cancer have yet to pass away, because they are still in their survival time.

But, I understand what you are saying, thanks for the info.

[Steelrolled]

21. I believe it is also thought that some of the

cancer detected early would have never created a problem.
Cancers don't always grow. I believe this is based on
cases where treatment was not possible was other reasons.

But when they are found early, no-one wants to take
the chance that it might not progress.

[Garion_55]

15. People getting off the nicotine and on the thc / cbd?

[RussBLib]

16. I wonder how Trump will take credit for it?

That sick POS

[Sapient Donkey]

19. Of course he has and here's a link

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/09/politics/cancer-deaths-trump-fact-check-bn/index.html

[Stuart G]

20. k and r