WASHINGTON, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The latest annual report on cancer in the United States released Tuesday in the journal Cancer showed that the country's overall cancer death rates continued to decline in men, women and children in all major racial and ethnic groups, but some cancers including those of the liver, pancreas, and brain caused more deaths.
The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer showed that from 1999 to 2015, overall cancer death rates decreased by 1.8 percent per year among men and by 1.4 percent per year among women.
The report was a collaborative effort by the National Cancer Institute under the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Cancer Society and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR).
From 2011 to 2015, death rates decreased for 11 of the 18 most common cancer types in men and for 14 of the 20 most common cancer types in women, according to the report.
However, over the same period, death rates for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and brain and other nervous system increased in both men and women; death rates for cancer of the uterus increased in women; and death rates for cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx and soft tissue increased in men, according to the report.
Researchers suggest that the increase in liver cancer death rates is related to the high prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection among baby boomers, those who were born during about 20 years after the World War II, as well as to the high prevalence of obesity in the United States.
Obesity is also thought to have contributed to the increase in death rates from cancers of the uterus and pancreas.
The recent increase in oral cavity and pharynx cancer death rates among white men is thought to be associated with human papillomavirus infection.
The report also described five-year survival from 2007 to 2013 by cancer stage at diagnosis for four of the most common cancers: female breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung and bronchus cancer, and melanoma of the skin.
While five-year survival is high for early-stage disease for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and melanoma, survival remains low for all stages of lung cancer, ranging from 55 percent for Stage I to 4 percent for Stage IV, the late stage.
"It's encouraging to see progress in decreasing death rates for many types of cancer," said Betsy A. Kohler, executive director of NAACCR. "Yet the fact that death rates from several cancers are still on the rise means we need to keep working to find strategies to encourage prevention and continue to make improvements in screening and treatment."
The report revealed that incidence and death rates for all types of cancer combined were higher in men than those in women in every racial and ethnic group.
But it also said that overall cancer incidence, or rates of new cancers, decreased in men and were stable in women from 1999 to 2014.
For all cancer sites combined, black men and white women had the highest incidence rates compared to other racial groups, and black men and black women had the highest death rates compared to other racial groups, it showed.
Also, non-Hispanic men and women had higher incidence and death rates than those of Hispanic ethnicity.
"There continue to be significant declines in the cancer death rate with significant differences in rate by sex, race, and ethnicity," said Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.
"We need to continue working to understand the reasons for the disparities and how to most efficiently continue supporting and, if possible, accelerate these declines," said Brawley.
