The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2006, is being released to the public at 5 p.m. on Monday, December 7, 2009.
The report appears this year in the journal CANCER, and provides an update of cancer incidence rates, death rates, and trends in the United States. The North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) collaborate to create this report, which has been created annually since 1998.
Highlights of the Report
The overall decline in cancer death rates, first noted in the 1990s, has continued through 2006. Death rates decreased on average 1.6 percent per year from 2001 through 2006, continuing the trend that was seen with the annual decrease of 1.1 percent per year from 1993 through 2001. This decline was slightly more pronounced among men (2 percent per year from 2001 through 2006) than women (1.5 percent per year from 2002 through 2006). Death rates are the best indicator of progress against cancer.
After increasing from 1975 through 1992, incidence rates for all cancers combined for both sexes and all populations were stable from 1992 through 1999 and decreased 0.7 percent from 1999 through 2006. Declines in incidence rates among men were again steeper than among women. For men, incidence rates for all cancers decreased by 1.3 percent per year from 2000 through 2006. For women, incidence rates for all cancers combined decreased 0.5 percent from 1998 through 2006.
Special Section on Colorectal Cancer
The special section of this year’s report focuses on colorectal cancer rates. Long-term incidence trends for colorectal cancer have been fairly consistent for both men and women, with major declines from 1985 to1995, minor increases from 1995 to1998, and significant declines from 1998 to 2006. Since 1984, death rates have also been in decline, for both men and women with accelerated rates of decline since 2002 for men and 2001 for women. In the most recent decade for which there are data (1997-2006), rates of newly diagnosed colorectal cancer have decreased for all racial, ethnic and gender groups examined except American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) women. The fastest annual rate of decline in the number of new cases occurred among men and women over 65 years of age, and the most rapid increase in the rate of new cases occurred in people under age 50 in most population groups.
To view the full report, go to: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/28741/home
A Q&A document is posted at: http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/ReportNation2009QandA