New report: US cancer mortality rate fell by ONE THIRD in the past three decades!
cancer.org/research/cance
Key findings: Mortality declines are
- accelerating for lung cancer
- slowing for breast cancer
- stabilizing for prostate cancer
Key charts—>
Conversation
Replying to
I feel like a massively underrated story of public health progress is the decline of stomach cancer.
In 1930s, it led all cancers in death rate. In the last 100 years—with declines in smoking, improvements in food and water quality to eliminate bacteria—it's fallen almost 90%.
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It seems sneaky-significant that, while many people (well, certainly, *I*) might instinctively assume that declining cancer mortality is mostly about better treatments, much of the decline actually comes from behavioral changes (e.g., much less smoking) and better screening
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I think it's common to say that a goal of biotech should be to "cure cancer."
And it would be incredible to create perfect treatments for every cancer.
But equally powerful would be (as we've seen over last 3 decades) identifying ways to prevent and screen effectively.
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Replying to
When I see a chart, I always ask myself, "what data am I not seeing?"
Since the average life expectancy has dropped for the first time in a very long time in America, people are still dying and they're dying sooner.
The question is now, "what are they dying from"
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Replying to
Is there any reason for the bump in prostate cancer being aligned with the peak of lung cancer? Lung cancer peak feels like its related to the time after peak smoking incidence, but is prostate related to smoking incidence too? Or perhaps Vietnam?
