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Is the rate of cancers increasing or decreasing?


Actually, the rate at which cancer occurs in the population has changed little in the past 40 years.  The overall number of cases continues to increase because the population is growing and also getting older, and cancer is largely a disease of aging.  As people get older, more cases of cancer will occur. However, the cancer death rate has dropped by 23% since 1991, translating to 1.7 million fewer deaths through 2012, according to the American Cancer Society.  This is largely because of early detection, better treatment, and fewer people are smoking tobacco, the culprit in most lung cancers and a contributor to several other types.  So cancer is probably not occurring at a greater rate, it’s just that there are more people who are more likely to develop cancer because of their age, but we are better able to detect and treat those cancers in many cases.

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