Between 1975 and 2005, cancer incidence and mortality rates declined among U.S. men and women, according to an annual report from the American Cancer Society, CDC, National Cancer Institute and North American Association of Center Cancer Registries.

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The report, published yesterday in an online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is the first to document a decrease in both cancer incidence and mortality from cancer for both men and women.

Researchers used the SEER database and the CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries to obtain data for newly diagnosed invasive cancers, including in situ bladder cancers. Cancer mortality data were obtained from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Using joinpoint analyses, the researchers analyzed long-term (1975-2005) and short-term (1996-2005) patterns in cancer incidence and examined average rates for the top 15 cancer types between 2001 and 2005. The average annual (2001-2005) age-standardized incidence and death rates for all races and ethnicities were examined using data from 41 population-based cancer registries.

Short-term cancer incidence, mortality

From 1999 to 2005, overall cancer incidence rates declined by 0.8% per year for all races and ethnicities combined and for both men and women. From 2001 to 2005, incidence rates dropped by 1.8% per year in men and between 1998 and 2005, rates dropped by 0.6% per year for women.

The researchers reported differences by sex in incidence trends for the top 15 cancers during the most recent joinpoint periods. Rates for lung and bronchus, colon and rectal, oral cavity and pharynx and stomach cancers continued to decrease among men. From 1995 to 2001, prostate cancer rates increased by 2.1% annually; however, from 2001 to 2005, rates dropped by 4.4% per year.

During the most recent joinpoint periods, incidence rates for six of the top 15 cancers — breast, colorectal, uterine corpus and uterus, ovary, cervix uteri and oral cavity and pharynx — decreased among women. Rates increased for the other nine types: lung, thyroid, pancreas, bladder, kidney, brain, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, melanoma and leukemia).

Since the early 1990s, overall cancer mortality rates have decreased in both men and women, according to the researchers. In men, death rates dropped by 1.5% per year between 1993 and 2001, and by 2% per year from 2001 to 2005. Among women, rates dropped by 0.8% per year from 1994 to 2002, and by 1.6% per year from 2002 to 2005.

However, esophageal cancer in men, pancreatic cancer in women and liver cancer in both men and women had increasing mortality trends during the most recent period.

Cancer incidence and mortality by race/ethnicity

Among all men, cancer incidence rates from 2001 to 2005 were highest among black men. White women had the highest rates among all women. From 1996 to 2005, incidence rates for all cancer types decreased in men and women of all races and ethnicities.

From 2001 to 2005, black men and women had the highest death rate for all cancers; Asian Pacific Islander men and women had the lowest. From 1996 to 2005, death rates for all cancers decreased for all races and ethnicities, in both men and women. However, death rates were stable among American Indian and Alaska Native men and women.

“Declines in cancer death rates indicate real progress in cancer control, reflecting a combination of primary prevention, early detection and treatment,” the researchers wrote.