1.9M new cancer cases predicted in US for 2023: study

Cancer deaths have dropped 33% in the US since 1991, according to new statistics from the American Cancer Society, which is predicting a slight uptick in cancer cases and deaths this year compared to last year’s projections.

The annual report — published Thursday in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians — noted there has been an “astounding” 65% drop in cervical cancer rates in young women thanks to the HPV vaccine, but prostate cancer is on the rise among men.

“We must address these shifts in prostate cancer, especially in the black community, since the incidence of prostate cancer in black men is 70% higher than in white men,” Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society, said in a statement.

Dahut added: “Prostate cancer mortality rates in black men are approximately two to four times higher than those in every other racial and ethnic group.”

For men, the greatest number of deaths are, in decreasing order, from lung, prostate and colorectal cancers, while lung, breast and colorectal cancers are fueling female deaths, findings show.

The cancer society is projecting nearly 1.96 million new cancer cases in the US this year and 609,820 cancer deaths. Last year, the organization predicted nearly 1.92 million new cancer cases and 609,360 cancer deaths for 2022.

The incidence of prostate cancer increased by 3% per year from 2014 through 2019 after two decades of decline, the report found. Even more troubling is that since 2011, the diagnosis of advanced-stage prostate cancer has increased by 4% to 5% annually.

“The increasing percentage of men presenting with advanced prostate cancer, which is much more difficult to treat and often incurable, is highly discouraging,” Dr. Karen E. Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society, said in a statement.

“In order to end cancer as we know it, for everyone, it is imperative for us to focus on cancers where trends for incidence and mortality are going in the wrong direction.” 

The group said an estimated 3.8 million cancer deaths have been prevented over the past three decades thanks to the overall cancer mortality rate dropping by a third. Screening is key, according to researchers. The cancer society nodded to the drop in cervical cancer rates.

“The large drop in cervical cancer incidence is extremely exciting because this is the first group of women to receive the HPV vaccine, and it probably foreshadows steep reductions in other HPV-associated cancers,” said Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report.