Rates predicted to meet Healthy People 2020 targets for breast, lung, prostate cancers
MONDAY, July 6, 2015 (HealthDay News) — For many cancers, mortality rates are declining and are expected to meet Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) targets, according to a study published online July 2 in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Preventing Chronic Disease.
Hannah K. Weir, Ph.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues used mortality data from 1975 through 2009 and population estimates and predictions to predict deaths for all cancers by race, and predict progress toward meeting HP2020 targets.
The researchers found that the number of cancer deaths increased among white and black Americans from 1975 to 2009, mainly due to an aging white population and a growing black population. In all groups, age-standardized cancer mortality rates decreased. Rates are predicted to continue decreasing from 2007 to 2020, while cancer deaths are expected to increase by 15 percent among men and stabilize among women (increase of less than 10 percent). For cancers of the female breast, lung and bronchus, cervix and uterus, colon and rectum, oral cavity and pharynx, and prostate, but not for melanoma, decreasing mortality rates are expected to meet HP2020 targets.
“Increased efforts to promote cancer prevention and improve survival are needed to counter the impact of a growing and aging population on the cancer burden and to meet melanoma target death rates,” the authors write.
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