Total U.S. cancer deaths drop

For the first time in more than 70 years, annual cancer deaths in the United States have fallen.

The number of cancer deaths dropped to 556,902 in 2003, down marginally from 557,271 the year before, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

It's 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 one per cent 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.

In the U.S., experts are attributing the success to declines in smoking and the earlier detection and more effective treatment of tumours.

Death rates have fallen for lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, according to American Cancer Society officials.

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

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.

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.