Cancer Mortality Still Dropping With More Women Diagnosed, ACS Reports

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Although cancer mortality has declined by 34% in the United States, sparing about 4.5 million people, incidence rates in women under 50 are now 82% higher than in men, according to a new American Cancer Society report published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. This increase is an increase from 51%, reported in 2002.

Researchers used data from the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, The North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, collected through 2021. Mortality data was collected through 2022 using the National Center for Health Statistics.

In 2025, an estimated 2,041,910 new cancer diagnoses are expected in the United States—5,600 each day—and 618,120 cancer deaths. Breast cancer is anticipated to be the most diagnosed cancer in women, with 316,950 expected cases and 42,170 deaths.

Uterine cancer is the only cancer to show decreased survival decreases over the past four decades, with the largest survival disparity seen between Black and White women. Black women have a 63% survival rate, compared to 83% for White women. This is partly due to racial disparities and underfunding. In 2019, the NCI raised almost six times more funding for cervical cancer than uterine cancer. In 2022, uterine cancer killed three times more women than cervical cancer - 12,763 compared to 4,051.

Although lung cancer has been declining – 3% per year in men and 1.4% in women, it is still the deadliest cancer when combined and will kill a projected 124,730 this year. The delay is because women largely took up smoking later than men and were therefore slower to quit.

Cervical cancer rates will vary by age. Overall rates have decreased by nearly 50% since the 1970s, thanks to HPV vaccine uptake, increased screening and treatment of precursor lesions. However, incidence rates increased by 11% in women ages 30 to 44 between 2013 to 2021, while rates in women ages 20 to 24, the first generation to receive the vaccine, plummeted by 69%.

Liver cancer and melanoma rates have stabilized in men but continue to rise about 2% annually in women over 50. In women under 50, melanoma rates have stabilized, but liver cancer rates are still rising about 2% annually.

“Continued reductions in cancer mortality because of drops in smoking, better treatment, and earlier detection is certainly great news,” Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director, surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report said a news release. “However, this progress is tempered by rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women, harkening back to the early 1900s when cancer was more common in women.”

Siegel and her team recommend increasing investment in cancer prevention and treatment and increasing care in high-risk communities.