Why Are Cancer Mortality Rates Dropping? Doctors Credit Better Detection With Cutting Deaths

Cancer deaths in the U.S. have fallen noticeably in the last three decades in a remarkable sign of the effectiveness of novel detection methods, according to a new report by the American Cancer Society (ACS).

On Wednesday, the ACS reported that the cancer death rate dropped by about 32% from its peak in 1991 of 215 deaths for every 100,000 to 146 out of every 100,000 in 2019. This change could translate into about 3.5 million deaths that didn't occur during the three decades. According to experts, this drop can be chalked up to improved detection methods that help doctors make earlier diagnoses in patients.

The ACS attributed this to a drop in mortality among patients with lung cancer more than any other form of cancer. It found that in 2019, about one in four cancer deaths was among lung cancer patients and lung cancer deaths are declining faster than overall trends. Mortality rates for lung cancer dropped about 5% each year between 2015 and 2019, while overall cancer mortality dropped about 2% in that time.

However, the ACS projects that there will be about 1.9 million new cancer diagnoses and more than 609,000 cancer deaths in the U.S. in 2022, including about 350 deaths per day from lung cancer.

Karen Knudsen, CEO of the ACS, said one long-term way to ward off more mortalities is by finding ways to cut into the amount Americans are smoking, which is a leading cause of lung cancer.

"Studies have shown that for someone who's diagnosed with cancer, irrespective of what that cancer is - lung cancer or another cancer - if they quit smoking at the time of cancer diagnosis, it's strongly associated with a better outcome," Knudsen told CNN.

In 2019, nearly 14 of every 100 U.S. adults aged 18 years or older were smokers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This, the agency said, translated into 34.1 million adult smokers, but added that it estimated that more than 16 million Americans were living with a smoking-related disease like lung cancer.

Smoking among American adults was in decline for years when it fell from 20.9% in 2005 to about 14% in 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a resurgence in smoking with cigarette sales jumping from $202.9 billion in 2019 to $203.7 billion in 2020 as demand from retailers and wholesale companies increased.