Number of yearly cancer deaths falls

For the first time in more than 70 years, annual cancer deaths in the United States have fallen, a turning point in the war on cancer likely achieved by declines in smoking and better tumor detection and treatment.

The number of cancer deaths dropped to 556,902 in 2003, down from 557,271 the year before, according to a recently completed review of U.S. death certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics.

"Even though it's a small amount, it's an important milestone," said Dr. Michael Thun, who directs epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society.

This is the first annual decrease in total cancer deaths since 1930, according to a cancer society analysis of federal death data.

For more than a decade, health statisticians have charted annual drops of about 1 percent in the cancer death rate -- the calculated number of deaths per 100,000 people. But the actual number of cancer deaths still rose each year because the growth in total population outpaced the falling death rates.

"Finally, the declining rates have surpassed the increasing size of the population," said Rebecca Siegel, a Cancer Society epidemiologist.

Experts are attributing the success to declines in smoking and the earlier detection and more effective treatment of tumors. Death rates have fallen for lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, according to American Cancer Society officials, who analyzed federal death data.

Those are the four most common cancers, which together account for 51 percent of all U.S. cancer deaths.

'Wake-up call'

Southeast Missouri State University health and leisure professor Ed Leoni was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1993.

"It changed my life and was a real wake-up call," Leoni said. He had surgery and went through six weeks of radiation therapy. He has been in remission for nearly 13 years.

Leoni said that cancer treatment and technology has come a long way.

"What people may know about it from the past, may not be true today," he said. "The more I learned about cancer, the more confident I became when I was diagnosed."

The total number of cancer deaths among women actually rose by 409 from 2002 to 2003. Among men, deaths fell by 778, resulting in a net decrease of 369 total cancer deaths.

With such a small drop in deaths, it's possible they will rise again when 2004 data is tabulated, said Jack Mandel, chairman of epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health.

Cancer is diagnosed more often in older people than younger people, and the large and aging population of baby boomers may push cancer statistics a bit. Even so, that should be offset by treatment improvements and declines in smoking and cancer incidence.

"I still think we're going to see a decline," Mandel said.

Staff writer Jennifer Freeze contributed to this report.