Drop in U.S. cancer death rate is biggest on record
Cutting Down Cancer
Advances in the treatment of lung and skin cancers contributed to the 2.2 percent drop in cancer mortality between 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop ever recorded, according to the latest report from the American Cancer Society, according to an article by Brianna Abbott in the Wall Street Journal. The figures continued a longstanding decline that began 25 years ago.
While the decline is largely driven by progress against lung cancer, the biggest declines in the report happened in melanoma. Experts believe that advances in treatment are helping to boost survival rates in these two cancers.
Doctors attribute lung cancer death declines to decreasing smoking rates and advances in detection and treatment. In terms of melanoma, the report says that the advent of drugs like Roche Holding AG ’s Zelboraf that target the molecular roots of tumors and therapies like Yervoy from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. that use a patient’s own immune system in the cancer fight are critical in changing the statistics.
Pharmaceutical companies such as Roche and Bristol have spent tens of billions of dollars recently to develop new treatments including Zelboraf, Yervoy and new generations of the therapies. According to the Wall Street Journal article, “The $123 billion world-wide cancer drugs market is among the industry’s biggest and fastest growing, which has prompted companies to double down on their research and promises even more agents that could make a dent against tumors.”
According to a spokesperson for Genentech, one of the companies that developed Zelboraf and is owned by Roche, “Our work with personalized medicines, such as Zelboraf, deepens our understanding of the underlying biology of cancer. We are continually building up this knowledge to help more people across many different types of cancer.”
In spite of the progress, cancer continues to be the second-leading cause of death in the U.S., behind heart disease, and declines in colorectal, breast and prostate cancer deaths have slowed down. The report, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, opines that there will be 1.8 million new cancer cases and 600,000 cancer deaths in the U.S. in 2020.
As stated by Patrick Hwu, the head of cancer medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, “It’s a really exciting time in cancer research, and I think we’re seeing the fruits of many years of investments. That being said, we still have a long way to go.”
While the cancer mortality rate in the U.S. has largely involved deaths from lung cancer, it began to fall in the early 1990s, because fewer people smoked and researchers made progress in breast, prostate and colorectal cancers. Now progress against lung cancer has picked up steam, and survival rates have gotten better at every stage of the disease. Death rates have gone down 51 percent among men and 26 percent among women since their respective peaks.
New treatments such as targeted therapies, use drugs to fight specific genetic mutations or proteins, and immunotherapies, which harness a patient’s immune system. There are also advances in screening and early detection, surgical techniques and radiation therapy.