Cancer burden is shifting from men to women and old to young

Deaths from cancer continue to fall in the United States, the American Cancer Society reports Thursday, but within that encouraging trend is a disturbing shift in the cancer burden from older to younger adults and from men to women. 

Overall, the cancer mortality rate fell by 34% from 1991 to 2022, translating to roughly 4.5 million fewer deaths over those two decades. The report’s authors attribute that improvement to less smoking, better treatment, and earlier detection. But that progress may stall, they warn, because incidence rates for many cancer types are climbing, especially among women and younger adults.

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