Data: Journal of the National Cancer Institute; Chart: Chris Canipe / Axios
Ed note: One thing that might falsely improve survival is the early diagnosis bias. In other words, the earlier a disease is diagnosed the longer the survival. Men still die from prostate cancer, but so many early diagnoses are made with the PSA that the survival looks longer – even though the majority would have live out normal lives with the localized cancer. Despite that bias, great strides are being made with melanoma, lymphoma and breast cancer – but lung cancer, pancreatic, liver cancer and others remain very difficult to treat.
Interesting.
Jim, do you have any idea why uterine and cervical rates are decreasing?
According to the CDC: “Cervical cancer used to be the leading cause of cancer death for women in the United States. However, in the past 40 years, the number of cases of cervical cancer and the number of deaths from cervical cancer have decreased significantly. This decline largely is the result of many women getting regular Pap tests, which can find cervical precancer before it turns into cancer.1 For more information, visit HPV-Associated Cervical Cancer Rates by Race and Ethnicity.” Likely the HPV vaccine for young women will be very helpful in prevention also.
For uterine cancer there has been no drop in incidence, but there is an 81.5% chance of living more than 5 years. I suspect earlier diagnosis and better treatment account for the longer survival.
From the CDC: “Number of New Cases and Deaths per 100,000: The number of new cases of endometrial cancer was 25.7 per 100,000 women per year. The number of deaths was 4.6 per 100,000 women per year. These rates are age-adjusted and based on 2010-2014 cases and deaths.
Lifetime Risk of Developing Cancer: Approximately 2.8 percent of women will be diagnosed with endometrial cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2012-2014 data.
Prevalence of This Cancer: In 2014, there were an estimated 710,228 women living with endometrial cancer in the United States.”