Cancer numbers set to double in U.S.

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Cancer numbers set to double in U.S.

As America ages, more will be living with the disease: report

MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS


May 14 — The number of Americans diagnosed with cancer each year is expected to double by 2050, according to a new report that warns of an intense burden on the health care system.


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THE ANNUAL Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer says that as the U.S. population grows and ages, the number of newly diagnosed cancer patients will rise from 1.3 million persons to 2.6 million.
Cancer itself will not be more menacing, the authors stressed, noting that the percentage of the population with cancer has been stable since about 1995. But because there will be older people and cancer occurs predominantly in the elderly, more Americans will get cancer, they said.
“The median age at diagnosis is 68,” the report states.
The report, complied by a coalition of cancer groups including the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute, appears in the current issue of the journal Cancer.

The so-called cancer population will get older as it gets larger, according to the study. By 2050, more than 1.1 million people 75 and older will be diagnosed each year, up from about 400,000 today.
The increase in older cancer patients will require more cancer specialists who can treat them, the study warns. There are already shortages in many of those professions.
The figures “underscore a critical need for expanded and coordinated cancer control efforts to serve an aging population and reduce the burden of cancer in the elderly,” said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging.

DEATH RATES DROPPING
The researchers found a steady decline in the U.S. death rate from all types of cancer in the 1990s. That figure dropped an average of about 1 percent each year from 1993 to 1999, the latest year for which figures are available.

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The authors attributed lower death rates to better treatments, better screening methods that catch many cancers earlier, when they are more treatable, and fewer people smoking.
The four major killer cancers - lung, colorectal, breast and prostate - accounted for 53 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States from 1995 to 1999, the study found.
Lung cancer was by far the leader, accounting for more than one-fourth of the deaths - and nearly one-third in men alone. But death rates for these leading killers fell in the 1990s.
One big exception was lung cancer death rates in women — which mirror the rise of the popularity of smoking among women.

Cases of and deaths from different forms of cancer, as percentages of total cancer cases and deaths, 1998:
Cancer	Cases	Deaths
Breast	16.3	7.8
Prostate	14.8	5.9
Lung	13.2	28.5
Colon-rectum	11.6	10.5
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma	4.0	4.3
Melanoma	3.5	1.4
Thyroid	1.5	0.4
Liver and intrahepatic bile duct	1.2	2.3
Esophagus	0.9	2.2
Acute myeloid leukemia	0.8	1.3
Soft tissue including heart	0.6	0.7
Small intestine	0.3	0.2
Vulva	0.3	0.1

Columns do not add up to 100 percent due to exclusion of basal and squamous cell skin cancers, which were not included in the report.
Source: National Cancer Institute

While cancer death rates slowly dropped, the rate of cancer cases overall stabilized in the 1990s after rising in the 1970s and 1980s, the report found.
Again, there is a disturbing trend among women though: While the number of cancer cases stayed the same among men last year, it increased among women.
“For women, overall cancer incidence rates increased from 1987 to 1999, due to increased breast cancer rates among women aged 50 to 64, and increased lung cancer rates among women 65 to 74 years old,” according to the report.
Using new statistical analysis, the researchers estimated 8.9 million people were living with cancer in the United States at the beginning of 1999. About 60 percent of those were 65 or older.

BUSH SIGNS CANCER BILL
Also on Tuesday, President Bush has signed a measure boosting research and public awareness programs for leukemia and other blood cancers.
The bill doubles the National Cancer Institute’s budget for blood cancers — and creates a $25 million fund to help educate the public on the benefits of early diagnosis and treatment.
Blood cancers — including leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma — account for 11 percent of all cancer deaths in America. But right now, blood cancer programs get just five percent of federal research funds.
Watching as the president signed the bill was former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who was diagnosed
three years ago with multiple myeloma.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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