Cancer death rates declining, new report says, but diagnosis rates are on the rise for women
A new report on cancer in the US shows a steady decline in overall deaths from 2001 through 2022. The rate of diagnoses among men fell from 2001 through 2013 and then stabilized through 2021 but these incidence rates among women increased slightly every year between 2003 and 2021.
Those trends were interrupted in 2020, when cancer incidence rates fell significantly, the report shows, possibly because of disruptions in medical care related to the Covid-19 pandemic. After 2020, they returned to expected levels. 'Because fewer cancers were diagnosed in 2020, especially through screening, we may see a larger percentage of cancers diagnosed at a late stage in future years,' the report says.
The 2024 Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer was published Monday in the journal Cancer. It's based on data from cancer registries funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute, and it's released by those institutions, the American Cancer Society and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.
'Overall, cancer incidence and death rates continue to decline, representing changes in risk factors, increases in screening utilization, and advances in treatment,' the researchers write. 'However, sustained disparities by race and ethnicity emphasize the need to fully understand the factors that create these differences so that they can be mitigated.'
Fewer people in the US are using tobacco, helping lower incidence and death rates for smoking-related cancers like lung, bladder and larynx, the report says. And these sustained declines in lung cancer have been a major contributor to the overall improvements in cancer death.
However, incidence rates are on the rise for several other cancers, including those linked with excess weight, such as pancreas and kidney cancers; uterine, breast and liver cancers among women; and colon and rectal cancers among adolescents and young adults.
Previously published research has shown that cancer diagnoses are shifting from older to younger adults and from men to women. Middle‐age women now have a slightly higher cancer risk than their male counterparts, and young women are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease as young men, according to an American Cancer Society report published earlier this year.
The new report shows that incidence rates among women have risen 0.3% each year. The largest observed increase among women was for stomach cancer, which the researchers say may be largely due to a change in the classification of tumors by the World Health Organization.
Rates of breast cancer diagnoses are also gradually increasing, driven mostly by types of cancer that have been associated with factors like obesity, alcohol use and age when someone gives birth for the first time.
The data continues to show large racial disparities. For example, Black women have a 40% higher rate of death from breast cancer than White women, and their rate of death from uterine cancer is double that of White women.
Differences in access to care and less use of diagnostic procedures and treatment may account for some of the difference, the researchers say. 'One additional potential risk factor disproportionately affecting Black women is the use of chemical hair relaxers, which may be associated with an increased risk of uterine cancer among postmenopausal women.'
Changing habits such as stopping tobacco use, staying at a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet with fruits and vegetables, avoiding alcohol and protecting skin can all reduce risk of cancer. Screening can help find and treat cancers early, before they spread. Screenings are available and recommended for certain people for breast cancer, colon and rectal cancer, cervical cancer, endometrial cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr.'s new vaccine panel is packed with vaccine skeptics
During his Senate confirmation hearings for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to great lengths to downplay his previous anti-vaccine positions to try to assure the public that he wasn't as extreme as his record indicated. But now that he has unveiled new members of an important vaccine advisory committee, his long-held extremism is not only coming back into full view, it's also being operationalized. On Monday, Kennedy removed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which is made up of medical and public health experts and advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As NBC News reports, this committee makes 'recommendations to the CDC about who should get certain vaccines, including the schedule for childhood vaccinations.' These recommendations are then adopted by medical professionals and insurers. Kennedy justified the move by alleging that the experts on the panel were all compromised by financial conflicts of interest. But the claim looked like a dubious pretext for clearing the way for a new panel. As NBC News reports, 'Members of ACIP, who undergo an extensive vetting process before they are appointed, are required to disclose conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from voting on vaccines for which conflicts exist.' Sean O'Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics, who serves as a liaison to the committee from the pediatric academy, told The New York Times that the idea that the old committee's decisions were influenced by financial conflicts of interest was 'factually incorrect, and you can look at the record to see that.' He called Kennedy's firings 'manufactured chaos.' Kennedy's vision came into clearer view on Wednesday when he announced eight new people to serve on ACIP's board, including several experts with questionable or outright dangerous track records on vaccinations or public health recommendations. They include: Robert Malone, a physician-scientist and biochemist whom The New York Times has described as a 'misinformation star,' in part because of his record of misleadingly questioning the dangers of Covid and the safety of Covid vaccines. Vicky Pebsworth, the director of research and patient safety at the National Vaccine Information Center, which NBC News reports is 'considered a leading source of misinformation about vaccines.' Cody Meissner, a Dartmouth pediatrics professor who was a signer of the Great Barrington Declaration, the statement that opposed lockdowns during the Covid pandemic. Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. NBC News reports that he 'has called for an end to Covid vaccinations, claiming mRNA vaccines cause serious harm and death, especially among young people.' Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and biostatistician who was one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. Kennedy didn't pick random people off the internet; they have credentials, often at highly esteemed institutions, although some of these academic backgrounds apparently deviate from the kind one typically expects for this panel. But many public health experts and those who keep a close eye on vaccine skeptics and anti-vaxxers note that Kennedy appears to be putting together a slate of experts who skew ideologically against consensus and near-consensus views on vaccine safety and efficacy. 'Kennedy did not pick people with strong, current expertise in vaccines,' Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco who studies vaccine policy, told NPR. 'It tells me that Kennedy is setting up a committee that would be skeptical of vaccines, and possibly willing to implement an anti-vaccine agenda.' David Mansdoerfer, who served as deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services in the first Trump administration, called Kennedy's announcement 'a huge win for the medical freedom movement.' It's not yet clear how the advisory board will rule on vaccine recommendations in the future. But the real-world effects of this could be significant. As The New York Times notes, the panel's recommendations, which don't have to be adopted by the CDC but typically are, can affect how strongly doctors recommend vaccinations. If the panel's recommendations skew away from recommending vaccines, then it could mean that physicians might be more hesitant to counsel patients to take vaccines that have long been proved to be safe. Furthermore, the panel's recommendations could affect how health insurance companies cover vaccines. 'Right now, insurance companies cover the four-dose polio series. But without an A.C.I.P. recommendation, the shots might cost you more than $300,' the Times reports. We still don't know how this newly formed panel will play out. But contrary to Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' mantra, all indications so far are that Kennedy is laser-focused on advancing activist goals that will make our society less healthy. This article was originally published on
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Less than 4% of dentists are Black. This South Florida family wants to change that
North Miami dentist Roger Phanord remembers the moment he decided to get into the field. He was 7 years old and lived with his mother in Harlem, New York. He had a toothache, but their family didn't have much money, so they visited a man who practiced dentistry in his kitchen. He went home without any pain. 'I thought that was an amazing experience,' Phanord, 63, told the Miami Herald. 'And ever since, I wanted to do dentistry.' Roger Phanord and his twin sons, Kyle and Kevin, are now practicing together at North Miami's Phanord and Associates, a dental clinic with 12,000 active patients, a number Roger says is uncommonly high for a general practice. The three men are part of a small fraction of Black dentists in America, who make up less than 4% of all dentists in the U.S. Through mentorship, the family seeks to increase that number and help diversify their industry. Roger Phanord and his family moved to South Florida in the 1980s, and he attended Miami Killian Senior High School and 'played soccer like most Haitians do.' After studying at Florida International University, he graduated from University of Florida's dental school in 1987. Finding work at a local clinic was difficult, but that changed in June 1988 when he opened his clinic on Northwest 119th Street. 'I made sure that it was a large enough facility where all the Black dentists would graduate and have a place to come in and work,' he said. Kyle and Kevin Phanord, now 31, spent much of their free time as kids at the dental clinic and worked there as assistants during the summer. After the twin brothers graduated from University of Florida's College of Dentistry in 2020, they immediately knew they wanted to join their father at the North Miami practice. 'We're able to see what our dad was able to do, and working with him is just a blessing because we get to learn a lot from him,' Kyle Phanord said. For Kevin, his close relationship with his brother made it that much easier to join their father at the clinic. The brothers were roommates in college and had the same major and similar goals. They finish each other's sentences and act in a way that shows they grew in the same womb. The Phanord brothers grew up familiar with Black professionals like their father but realized as they got older that other Black children may not have the same experience. 'My brother and I looked at it as, we could continue the legacy, and we could help the next brother and sister coming up,' Kyle Phanord said. After their graduation from dental school, the brothers began mentoring Black college students interested in dentistry and said they have since helped 20 students be accepted into top dental programs at universities like the University of Florida, Tufts and Howard. Kevin Phanord said he ran into one former mentee in a North Carolina airport and was humbled by the interaction. 'He was pre-med, then he switched to pre-dental after meeting us,' Kevin said. 'He's like, 'You guys will never know how much you changed my life. I really appreciate it.'' Mentees shadow the twins at work and also receive recommendation letters. The letters are extremely important in a competitive dental industry. 'The biggest thing I think is important is having pre-dental students shadow. So having them come and see what we do on a daily basis and see how we create treatment plans to see if that's actually the field they want to go into,' Kevin Phanord said. Roger Phanord said the passion for helping others that he passed on to his sons stems from a personal mission that supersedes dentistry. He estimates that in his nearly 40 years as a dentist, he's helped 24 dentists set up their own practices or work at his business. That was by design. 'Every doctor that ever worked with me never had a contract,' he said. 'They could open tomorrow across the street. There's not that fear of competition.' Family business For the Phanords, working alongside family is generally a positive experience but can also present unique challenges. All three Phanord men have outgoing personalities and sometimes have differing views when it comes to how they will treat patients. There are periods when they can go days at a time without speaking to each other. 'At times, it's brutal,' said Roger Phanord. 'But ultimately, our ultimate goal is what's best for the patient. So it works out because we all have the same goal.' To Roger, that means working in his clients' best interests instead of his own, advocating only for dental work that is necessary. 'I could double or triple my income on any given year or any given day if I choose to, but then you got the ethical boundaries and then you got your own personal moral boundaries,' he said. 'I'm not going to advise the patient to do anything that I wouldn't do to a family member.' A new member of the family could potentially carry on the family's dentistry legacy someday. Kyle and his wife, Chemika, a pediatric dentist, recently welcomed their daughter, Naomi, to the world. Kyle Phanord believes the exposure his daughter has to her family's work could lead to an interest in dentistry. 'I think that exposure matters and representation matters,' he said. 'She sees that Mom and Dad are both in the field. There's a high possibility that the legacy can continue.' As Roger Phanord prepared to see his next patient on a recent afternoon, he reflected on the work he's done to move his family and people like them forward. 'I don't want to be the only one that makes it. I continue to live my life that way,' he said. 'And for me, it's been nothing but blessings.'
Axios
2 hours ago
- Axios
RFK Jr. blows up America's vaccine policy
America's vaccine policy has been set for decades, with patients, providers, scientists and insurers more or less in sync on the merits of immunizations. In the last several weeks, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended long-standing norms, introducing uncertainty into a once-reliable system. Why it matters: Access to health care may shift in unpredictable ways. At worst, infectious diseases once thought to be eradicated could return. Catch up quick: Kennedy sent shockwaves through the medical community two weeks ago with a controversial decision to stop recommending the COVID vaccine to healthy kids and healthy pregnant women. The CDC contradicted this just days later, recommending that healthy kids do get the COVID shot. Confusion escalated this week, when Kennedy abruptly dismissed all 17 members of the expert panel that wields a great deal of power in shaping vaccine policy and makes recommendations to the CDC. Some of the eight new members Kennedy quickly named have expressed anti-vaccine sentiment in the past. Together, these changes represent a sharp break from public health precedent — and raise questions about what happens next. Case in point: Leigh Haldeman, a pregnant woman in Seattle, was recently turned away when going to get a COVID booster shot, as recommended by her doctor, CNN reports. Cases like hers could become more common. While most doctors and pharmacies will likely still be able to recommend and administer the vaccine, access might start to erode. Insurers are likely to start denying coverage of the COVID vaccine to groups who aren't deemed eligible by the government, putting the vaccine out of reach for people who don't have the time to seek out a willing provider or the money to pay out of pocket for the shot. The other side: Kennedy has said replacing the members of the expert panel is a "major step towards restoring public trust in vaccines." He's also said the decision to stop recommending COVID vaccines to kids is common sense because they're less likely to get very sick from COVID than adults. But the vaccine can still protect kids who could develop serious symptoms — and do so with no appreciable side effects, Chris Forrest, a professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told the New York Times. Zoom out: The COVID vaccine could just be the beginning. The CDC advisory panel members picked by Kennedy thus far are more aligned with his skeptical views of vaccines. They could radically reshape — or even scrap — national vaccine recommendations, including those for kids. They could also require more testing of new vaccines for safety and efficacy, which could have upstream effects — discouraging academic labs and drug companies from pursuing vaccine research and development. What to watch: Big changes in America's vaccine policy come amid a major cultural shift. Vaccine skepticism is on the rise, and more kindergartners are showing up to school with exemptions.
