2016

Each year, the American Cancer Society estimates the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths that will occur in the United States in the current year and compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival.

Incidence data were collected by the National Cancer Institute (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results [SEER] Program), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (National Program of Cancer Registries), and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.

Mortality data were collected by the National Center for Health Statistics.

  • In 2016:

    1,685,210 new cancer cases and 595,690 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States

  • Overall cancer incidence trends (13 oldest SEER registries) are stable in women, but declining by 3.1% per year in men (from 2009-2012), much of which is because of recent rapid declines in prostate cancer diagnoses.

  • The cancer death rate has dropped by 23% since 1991, translating to more than 1.7 million deaths averted through 2012.

  • Despite this progress, death rates are increasing for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and uterine corpus, and cancer is now the leading cause of death in 21 states, primarily due to exceptionally large reductions in death from heart disease.
  • Among children and adolescents (aged birth-19 years), brain cancer has surpassed leukemia as the leading cause of cancer death because of the dramatic therapeutic advances against leukemia.

2013

  • A total of 1,660,290 new cancer cases and 580,350 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States in 2013.
  • During the most recent 5 years for which there are data (2005-2009), delay-adjusted cancer incidence rates declined slightly in men (by 0.6% per year) and were stable in women, while cancer death rates decreased by 1.8% per year in men and by 1.5% per year in women.
  • Overall, cancer death rates have declined 20% from their peak in 1991 (215.1 per 100,000 population) to 2009 (173.1 per 100,000 population).

  • Death rates continue to decline for all 4 major cancer sites (lung, colorectum, breast, and prostate).

  • Over the past 10 years of data (2000-2009), the largest annual declines in death rates were for chronic myeloid leukemia (8.4%), cancers of the stomach (3.1%) and colorectum (3.0%), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (3.0%).
  • The reduction in overall cancer death rates since 1990 in men and 1991 in women translates to the avoidance of approximately 1.18 million deaths from cancer, with 152,900 of these deaths averted in 2009 alone.

Pancreatic cancer

  • In 2012, pancreatic cancers of all types were the seventh most common cause of cancer deaths, resulting in 330,000 deaths globally.
  • Pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of death from cancer in the United Kingdom, and the fourth most common in the United States.

  • The disease occurs most often in the developed world, where about 70% of the new cases in 2012 originated.

  • Pancreatic adenocarcinoma typically has a very poor prognosis: after diagnosis, 25% of people survive one year and 5% live for five years .
  • At least 50% of people with pancreatic adenocarcinoma have diabetes at the time of diagnosis.[4]
  • While long-standing diabetes is a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer (see Risk factors), the cancer can itself cause diabetes, in which case recent onset of diabetes could be considered an early sign of the disease.[30]
  • People over 50 who develop diabetes have eight times the usual risk of developing pancreatic adenocarcinoma within three years, after which the relative risk declines.
  • Specific types of food (as distinct from obesity) have not been clearly shown to increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.[4] Dietary factors for which there is some evidence of slightly increased risk include processed meat, red meat, and meat cooked at very high temperatures (e.g. by frying, broiling or barbecuing).